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Izaak Dekker @izaakdekker.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

New paper shows notable and disturbing trends in educational research: 1 - Tertiary education is now studied twice as often as primary ed 2 - A decrease in intervention studies from 17% to 9% 3 - Increased attention for societal issues, less learning and instruction doi.org/10.1177/1474...

doi.org

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

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Izaak Dekker @izaakdekker.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Thanks! Small correction: *Danish = Dutch

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Reposted by Izaak Dekker

Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below.

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

A figure detailing the drain on researcher time.

1. The four-fold drain

1.2 Time
The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce,
with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure
1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material
has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs,
grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for
profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time.
The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million
unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of
peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting
widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the
authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many
review demands.
Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of
scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in
‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow
progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to
volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier,
local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with
limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging
with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks
intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision.

A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below:

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised
scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers
first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour
resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

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Reposted by Izaak Dekker

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

"Even when explicitly prompted for accuracy, most LLMs produced broader generalizations of scientific results than those in the original texts."

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Izaak Dekker @izaakdekker.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Just received a rejection of an article about a field experiment (of a widely used practice) because “null findings are not relevant for practice” 😐

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Reposted by Izaak Dekker

Pedro De Bruyckere @thebandb.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Een oproep voor PO-onderwijs rond collective teacher efficacy en collective student efficacy. Repost = good karma :)

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Reposted by Izaak Dekker

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

A social sciences and humanities reading list on AI in education 🧵

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Reposted by Izaak Dekker

Richard P Phelps @richardpphelps.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Dismissive Reviews, Citation Cartels, and the Replication Crisis richardphelps.net/Dismissive%2...

richardphelps.net

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Izaak Dekker @izaakdekker.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Here are 7 open science practices that I consider extremely useful (apart from being good for science in general). I added links to openly available materials and practical pointers for each practice. #openscience #phd www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwxb...

youtube.com

7 Open Science Practices I Wish I Would Have Learned During My PhD

YouTube video by Izaak Dekker

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