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Of course, since what most scientists maximize is the IF, it would be interesting to replicate this analysis replacing H-index and Scimago rank by the IF. I'm expecting that the difference will probably be even greater. Curious to hear your thoughts on that! #ScientificPublication 7/7

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This confirms our initial hypothesis that FP journals probably increase the APCs to maximize benefits and not just to account for a higher rate of submission, but the result is not so striking as I initially expected (for H-index at least) 6/7

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Next, we thought to compare the correlation coefficients between FP and NP+UP journals. The difference was statistically significant for the Scimago Rank (p<0.001) but not for the H-index (z = 0.3055, p-value = 0.3800) although the tendency was always a higher correlation in FP journals. 5/7

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Unsurprisingly, there is a strong correlation between APCs and H-index, as well as between APCs and Scimago rank for both for-profit (FP) journals and for non-profit (NP)+university press (UP) journals. 4/7

An interactive database of for-profit and non-profit scientific journals in biology. - WhereToPublish/WhereToPublish.github.io

Since we boycott the use of the IF in WhereToPublish (see github.com/WhereToPubli... and sfdora.org for the reasons behind this), we made the test with the H-index and the Scimago rank (www.scimagojr.com) of the journals, which are two alternative metrics reflecting a journal's prestige. 3/7

github.com

2. Using the Website

An interactive database of for-profit and non-profit scientific journals in biology. - WhereToPublish/WhereToPublish.github.io

Our expectation was that journals, especially for-profit, may increase the APCs in the journals with the highest IF not only to compensate for the higher number of submissions that they receive but also to maximize their profits. 2/7

github.com

2. Using the Website

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Based on a suggestion from @gsescousse.bsky.social, we wanted to use our WhereToPublish database to check the relationship between article processing charges (APCs) and the "prestige" of the journal. 1/7

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Who knows, maybe LLMs could at least help in providing new more fair solutions so that we can communicate science in our own native languages more easily and still connect with the rest of the scientific community in the future!

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royalsocietypublishing.org

More generally, the predominance of english and of english-based journals is an impoverishment as each language bears its own richness and ways of thinking about the world and english predominance may be diminishing our collective capacities to think.

Academic publishing requires linguistically inclusive policies

Abstract. Scientific knowledge is produced in multiple languages but is predominantly published in English. This practice creates a language barrier to gen

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Regarding for-profit journals, this basically means that public institutions from all over the world basically enrich companies mostly located in the USA, UK and EU.

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It comes with no surprise but approximately 53% of all journals are either in the UK or in the USA (and even up to 65% if we include Springer Nature (Germany / UK) and Elsevier/Cell Press (Netherlands / USA) in this consideration). #scientificPublication #AcademicSky

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In times when people talk more and more about sovereignty, I was curious to use our WhereToPublish database to explore in which country most journals are based based on their publisher.

Nicolas Clairis @nclairis.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

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While @phylogenetrips.bsky.social and I were presenting the Where To Publish database (wheretopublish.github.io) in french to the CRNL in Lyon, @diegoharta.bsky.social was presenting the Where To Publish database in Spanish to the UNAM in Mexico! Where To Publish recording starting at 38:30

youtube.com

Ecología y Evolución del Pez Payaso. Genómica y simulaciones

YouTube video by Instituto de Ecología, UNAM

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Nicolas Clairis @nclairis.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

on the same day, @diegoharta.bsky.social presented the Where To Publish database in Spanish to the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) on the same day (recording below starting at 38:30). So if you don't speak french but speak spanish you have no more excuse to not get informed!

youtube.com

Ecología y Evolución del Pez Payaso. Genómica y simulaciones

YouTube video by Instituto de Ecología, UNAM

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And don't hesitate to also play with the data from our database wheretopublish.github.io APCs are mostly collected from the openAPC database (www.openapc.net) and all our data can be freely downloaded from our website as a .csv file :) #whereToPublish #APC #scientificPublicationSystem

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I don't have an easy explanation for that, but one possibility is that journals with editors willing to go fully for OA may also be the ones where editors are more motivated to maintain APCs low. Happy to hear more thoughts on that

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To my own surprise, I must confess that what I observed was the opposite: OA journals have, on average, cheaper APCs than non-OA journals (i.e. hybrid + subscription journals).

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Adoption of open access is rising – but so too are its costs - LSE Impact

Based on much evidence that many publishers use the pressure to publish open access (OA) as a means to increase the article processing charges (APCs) I wanted to verify the assumption that for-profit OA journals are more expensive than for-profit non-OA journals in our where to publish database

blogs.lse.ac.uk

Options available to authors to make their work open access are on the rise. Adoption of open access itself is also rising, and usage of open-access materials is similarly increasing. However, alongsi...

Nicolas Clairis @nclairis.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

😢 the "Choose Europe" is a big joke in front of such cuts #chooseEurope

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Nicolas Clairis @nclairis.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

You can also see very quickly the outliers on our where-to-publish life-sciences database where APCs are mostly based on the openAPC database www.openapc.net for-profit journals and especially Elsevier and Springer Nature journals are clearly at the top

Daniel Heck @danielheck.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

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Reposted by Nicolas Clairis

I always had the vague feeling that Scientific Reports and Nature Communications are mainly APC business models. A paper estimated the total APC for gold/hybrid Open Access per journal 2015–2018: doi.org/10.1162/qss_... Surprise, surprise - there are 2 outliers at the top😐

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Nicolas Clairis @nclairis.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

"High-profile, high-fee journals affected include Nature Communications, Cell Reports, and Science Advances." Things are accelerating a bit as it seems when one of the only countries who raised its science budget decides to changes the journals it accepts to fund... #AcademicSky

science.org

Major Chinese funder to stop paying fees for 30 pricey open-access journals

Move comes amid effort to grow the country’s own journals

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Reposted by Nicolas Clairis

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

🚨Today 4pm CET🚨 PCI Webinar: The Drain of Scientific Publishing: why publishing is becoming a burden for science and how to fix it An overview talk based on three papers on #ScientificPublishing, where it stands & how to fix it. Plus dad jokes and bad acronyms. peercommunityin.org/pci-webinar-...

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Nicolas Clairis @nclairis.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

sad for US but " Abrahams hopes to host the ceremony in a different European city every other year." 😍

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Also note that stats were done with non-parametric tests, and the only groups that are not different are the [for-profit associated with a scientific society] vs [university press], otherwise all the 2-by-2 posthoc tests are significant (p<=0.005; the 4 groups being: FP/FP with a Society/UP/NP)

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and indeed the opposite holds true in the for-profit group: mean = 2635€ median = 2543€ while in the non-profit + UP as you observed: mean = 1996€ median = 2228€

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thanks for the fbk, yeah sounds likely, you can already see it on the where to publish website if you filter the data by publisher type. There are more diamond OA (0€ APC) in the non-profit group while the extreme high outliers are more concentrated in the for-profit group

To conclude: check our Where To Publish database and don't hesitate to also play with the data which can easily be downloaded from the website! #OpenAccess #ScientificSky #ScientificPublicationSystem #Science #articleProcessingCharges #AcademicSky #OpenScience 4/4

Making sure you're not a bot!

Side note: the APC values are mostly indicative and are mostly based on the openAPC database (www.openapc.net) 3/4

openapc.net

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Notably, non-profit journals are the definitive winners and are even cheaper than university press journals with an average 1792 +/- 90€ of APCs! This is clearly a call for change but sadly, for-profit journals clearly dominate the market with 71% of the journals in the database being for-profit..

Also unsurprisingly, the difference is statistically significant (p<0.001) and the average price is even higher when looking at for-profit journals that are NOT associated with one way or another to a scientific society: 2829 +/- 53€ 2/4