@stephenpinfield.bsky.social
Professor of Information Services Management at the University of Sheffield, UK, interested in open access, open science, research policy, library and information services. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4696-764X
📢 New RoRI Working Paper: Does targeted research funding reshape research landscapes?
New RoRI evidence from Norway and Switzerland suggests shifts in research topics are gradual - and similar under both targeted and non-targeted funding: researchonresearch.org/does-targete...
Our team in the MORPHSS Project are proud to share our first set of deliverables! We've produced a new catalogue resource for open research in the arts, humanities and qualitative social sciences:
09.02.2026 10:45 — 👍 14 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 0
In the MORPHSS report **Openness in the arts, humanities and social sciences: Documenting open research practices beyond STEM**, we explore the narrow focus of existing frameworks of open research & propose more inclusive ways of accommodating the diversity of open practice across all disciplines.
09.02.2026 09:28 — 👍 20 🔁 18 💬 1 📌 1
Screenshot of the MORPHSS catalogue
NEW resource for open research in the arts, humanities and qualitative social sciences:
The MORPHSS catalogue documents 30 open research practices in AHSS disciplines, with detailed descriptions, examples, and suggested resources and further reading.
catalogue.morphss.work
💥New | We need to move beyond the accept/reject binary in peer review
✍️ @georgealfredcurrie.bsky.social & Damian Pattinson
#PeerReview #AcademicSky #AcademicPublishing
Our new preprint on distributed peer review: doi.org/10.31222/osf... Anna Butters, Melanie Benson Marshall @tomstafford.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy @rorinstitute.bsky.social and colleagues from @volkswagenstiftung.de
09.01.2026 15:47 — 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Some initial thoughts on @samuelmoore.org's book
eve.gd/2025/12/26/a...
There is an opportunity for further discussion with Sam on January 16, when Sam will present his book in a seminar organized by @cwtsnl.bsky.social.
The seminar is hybrid and is open to all.
www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/20...
Thanks @stephenpinfield.bsky.social for interviewing me about my book for the @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social podcast.
newbooksnetwork.com/publishing-b...
Very much enjoyed last week's meeting in Cambridge about the Publish-Review-Curate (PRC) model for scholarly publishing. There were lots of highly inspiring discussions, including an important discussion about strengthening coordination between initiatives in this area.
asapbio.org/reimagining-...
Funders ‘hold all the cards’ to reform publishing, say academics.
Paper urges structural changes to stop “drain” of research resources by for-profit publishers.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-o...
One year ago we launched the MetaROR (MetaResearch Open Review) publish-review-curate platform. This has been one of the most exciting things I've been involved in over the past year.
Very grateful to everyone who has contributed to the development of MetaROR!
🎈 Time flies! Exactly one year ago today @rorinstitute.bsky.social and @aimosinc.bsky.social launched MetaROR, a platform to publish metaresearch through the publish-review-curate approach.
Over the course of the year, we published 28 articles reviewed by 59 different reviewers.
[1/3]
Are you puzzled and struggling with scientific publishing. Are pressed and stressed about the process, and worried about how much it costs?
Then please read this fanastic thread from Mark Hanson
cOAlition S Strategy 2026-2030
1/ cOAlition S announces its 2026–2030 strategy, guided by a refreshed, shared vision: a scholarly communication system that enables rapid, open, transparent & equitable sharing of trustworthy scientific knowledge.
www.coalition-s.org/coalition-s-...
#OpenScience #ScholarlyComm #Plan_S #OpenAccess
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.
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/...
Profits from scientific publishing are eye-watering, costing us billions. In ‘The Drain of Scientific Publishing’ (arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820), (building on ‘The Strain of Scientific Publishing’ doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00327) we show how it is harmful – and unnecessary.
12.11.2025 11:41 — 👍 65 🔁 41 💬 3 📌 4
Join RoRI Co-Chair @ludowaltman.bsky.social in Cambridge on 3 Dec, where he'll be a keynote at a forum exploring the Publish, Review, Curate model.
The event will showcase initiatives and discuss how this model can shape the future of scholarly communication: coar-repositories.org/news-updates...
Of particular interest to those interested in #preprints and #openscience , or anyone who has been thinking about the Engagement with Society aspects of OS cc. @asapbio.bsky.social @ludowaltman.bsky.social @stephenpinfield.bsky.social @jacoates.bsky.social
21.10.2025 21:07 — 👍 5 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0
💥New: Distributed Peer Review – How the wisdom of the crowd can allocate grant funding
✍️ Melanie Benson Marshall, Anna Butters, @stephenpinfield.bsky.social @tomstafford.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy
#PeerReview #PRW25 #ResearchPolicy
Our @cwts.nl PhD candidate Narmin Rzayeva chose to submit her most recent article, co-authored with @stephenpinfield.bsky.social and me, to MetaROR. The article presents an analysis of the adoption of preprinting across disciplines and regions.
Glad to see the feedback provided by two reviewers!
Should we be doing less peer review?
As research output grows, many question how much peer review the system can sustain.
RoRI's @ludowaltman.bsky.social: “We need to ask ourselves whether there really is a need for all research outputs to be peer reviewed.”
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Are scientists citing papers without reading them? #scientificpublishing #AcademicChatter #peerreview @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...
16.07.2025 20:19 — 👍 64 🔁 21 💬 11 📌 8
MetaROR flyer
Very grateful to all colleagues in the metascience community who dropped by at the @metaror.bsky.social stand at the recent #Metascience2025 conference. Glad to see the overwhelming interest in the MetaROR platform!
metaror.org
@rorinstitute.bsky.social @aimosinc.bsky.social @cwts.nl
New article in @nature.com covering RoRI's recent study of 100,000+ grant applicants across 14 funding programmes, shedding new light on the Matthew effect in science: how early funding success can compound over a researcher's career - www.nature.com/articles/d41...
23.06.2025 09:25 — 👍 20 🔁 11 💬 0 📌 1
Lots of debate in the publishing world about the merits of commercial hosting vs self-hosting vs new-gen open infrastructure. Sunsetting of PubPub is a cautionary tale
www.linkedin.com/posts/gabest...
Excellent report by EUA: www.eua.eu/publications...
24.06.2025 16:08 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Glad to see how various data providers are working on improving the quality of their article-preprint matching, partly based on insights provided by @katiecorker.bsky.social and myself.
Hopefully we will soon see the concrete effects of this!
A fresh conversation about the future of open access
OASPA, in collaboration with @researchconsulting.bsky.social has released a Next 50% project-primer that frames a fresh conversation about the future of open access. Visit the post bit.ly/3Se3akr for full details, including the primer & survey #OA
To accelerate the sharing of scientific knowledge, researchers increasingly publish their work on preprint servers. In our latest blog post, @ludowaltman.bsky.social, Narmin Rzayeva and @stephenpinfield.bsky.social discuss the state of preprinting in Europe and the Netherlands.
👇 Read it now