Universities Spend Millions on Accessing Results of Publicly Funded Research (theconversation.com)

Mark C. Wilson, a senior lecturer at Department of Computer Science, University of Auckland, writing for The Conversation: University research is generally funded from the public purse. The results, however, are published in peer-reviewed academic journals, many of which charge subscription fees. I had to use freedom of information laws to determine how much universities in New Zealand spend on journal subscriptions to give researchers and students access to the latest research -- and I found they paid almost US$15 million last year to just four publishers. There are additional costs, too. Paywalls on research hold up scientific progress and limit the publicâ(TM)s access to the latest information.

Comments

Publishers don't pay for much

[tolleyl]

One more reason why this is so irritating, is that the publishers hardly have to pay anyone. The scientists writing the papers do so for free, and often have to do the final print formatting themselves. The paper is then sent to the peer reviewers, who perform the reviews for free. In the end, the publisher doesn't pay for content, layout or review, so the journals don't have good reasons to be expensive. Things will gradually change, but it's taking a long time simply because scientists want their name in a big name journal.