Comment from Jeffrey Catalano
Jeffrey CatalanoSupportAcademic
Summary: A professor at Washington University in St. Louis supports the proposed changes to end the author-pay model for federally funded research. However, the commenter argues that the proposal is inadequate because it does not address the fact that agencies still favor high-profile, high-cost journals, which could disadvantage researchers at less-resourced institutions.
I am a professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Over the course of my nearly 20-year academic research career, I have been awarded major research grants by NSF, NASA, and DOE totaling over $5 million. This research has focused on a range of topics that include leaking nuclear waste, the fate of heavy metal contaminants in soils and groundwater systems, past habitability of Mars, and novel critical mineral resources. I also served for six years as the Executive Editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. The changes to allowable expenses for publication costs proposed by OMB [200.461] are a necessary step to end the author-pay model of open access published. Author-pay is a fundamentally flawed approach to scientific publishing. It leaves places Federally-funded scientists in untenable positions where they must redirect funds away from actual research costs to the payment of publication fees to publishers. There is no competitive marketplace because authors are expected to publish in specific top journals if they wish to continue receiving funding from the Federal government. Without the power of competition, authors cannot comparison shop to find lower prices. Requiring authors to pay article processing charges and similar fees, including for 0 month embargo periods needed to deposit accepted manuscripts in government repositories as required by Federal policy, leaves authors at the mercy of large publishers. However, the changes proposed in [200.461] are inadequate. Federal agencies are still allowed to evaluate proposals based on the journals in which scientists publish, and they are allowed to evaluate proposals on the basis of sharing publication in high-profile journals that charge large fees to publish. By banning the use of Federal funds to pay for such publishing fees without instructing agencies to not give greater weight to publications in high-cost journals, [200.461] disadvantages scientists at universities with lower resources. High-resource institutions can pay such fees and give their researchers an advantage in the proposal review process. Banning the payment of publication fees without a corresponding change to how publication venue is considered in the review and awarding process creates new barriers for obtaining research funding that favors scientists working at institutions with substantial financial resources.