6 scientific journal publishers accused of exploiting scholars

Lucina Uddin, a UCLA neurology professor, filed a lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court last week against publishers Elsevier, John Wiley & Sons, Sage Publications, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, and Wolters Kluwer, according to Reuters news agency.

A professor in the Department of Psychology at UCLA since July 2023, Ms. Uddin has published more than 175 articles and participated in peer review for more than 150 journals.

According to Ms. Uddin’s lawsuit, the publishers sued earned a total of more than $10 billion (246,200 billion VND) in revenue from peer-reviewed journals in 2023. Publisher Elsevier alone earned $3.8 billion from peer-reviewed journals in 2023, with a profit margin of up to 38%, surpassing both Apple and Google.

The lawsuit also cites a study showing that in 2020, scholars participating in peer review contributed more than $1.5 billion worth of work. However, publishers invite scholars to review scientific articles on the principle of "voluntary without remuneration".

“Many manuscripts await review for months, even years. And it is unfair that busy scholars spend valuable time reviewing but are not paid,” said Ms. Uddin.

The lawsuit also points out that these publishers "tacitly agreed" with each other about accepting manuscripts by setting "a submission rule that only submits manuscripts to a single journal," which violates the US Antitrust Act.

The lawsuit also denounces what Professor Uddin calls the "gag rule" - which prevents scholars from freely sharing scientific advances in manuscripts while awaiting peer review of scientific papers.

Many scholars are forced to sign away intellectual property rights to their research without receiving any benefits, while publishers charge “the maximum the market will bear” for access to scientific knowledge, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit portrays the academic journal publishing industry as a monopoly that manipulates the labor market and exploits young scholars whose careers depend on the speed of publication.

Publishers invite scholars to review scientific articles on a "voluntary basis without payment of remuneration" basis.

Dean Harvey, the attorney representing Professor Uddin, said the for-profit academic publishing industry has made billions of dollars by “taking advantage of the goodwill and hard work of talented scholars and the taxpayer dollars that fund their research.” Harvey is seeking to elevate the case to class action status, representing hundreds of thousands of people who may be affected.

Professor Sune D. Müller, University of Oslo (Norway), said that the current journal publishing system forces scholars to choose lower quality research projects in order to be published quickly in low-reputation journals, according to University World News .

Mr. Müller hopes that the court's victory will bring fair competition to the publishing industry, forcing publishers to pay reviewers and shortening the time it takes to process scientific articles.

In response to the news, publisher Wiley called the allegations "baseless." Wolters Kluwer, Elsevier and other publishers declined to comment or have not yet made any statements regarding the lawsuit, according to Reuters news agency.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/6-nha-xuat-ban-tap-chi-khoa-hoc-bi-to-boc-lot-hoc-gia-18524092410581965.htm