Mark A. Hanson

‘It’s really, really bad right now’: NIH scientists dismayed by Trump cuts Researchers say scientific community is in state of whiplash and accuse president of trying to ‘destroy’ vital work

I spoke to The Guardian about the devastating impacts of the Trump adminstration's war on the NIH and science
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Another great news piece by @jeffreybrainard.bsky.social at @science.org, which provides a good update on what's going on at the NIH regarding potential caps to APCs paid by their grants:
www.science.org/content/arti...

Entirely depends on the asking price. Doesn't seem feasible as a general solution across journals, as that's just a return to libraries getting fleeced by the industry through collective bargaining.

RSoc at least non-profit & small, probably making this a rounding error for most library budgets.

What's different about this idea and PlanS? PlanS required publishers to cooperate, giving them leverage in the new system.

Funders stipulating all work published in non-profits requires authors to follow funder guidelines, but doesn't involve publishers in the slightest.

That's why this can work.

Absolutely. Been saying this for ages.

And all scientific and academic associations should move their journals to non-commercial journals. Any university-based journals to academic presses (especially if they have them in their own institutions).

Have been in many great conversations with publishers, Chief officers of funding bodies, and EiCs in proposing this. I presume they know what they're talking about. I'd also be happy to hear your take. All perspectives welcome. Feel free to DM!

That said, the idea of fronts is fully the issue. This is why folks brought up ACS, which is basically that.

But the funder gets to define non-profit, so can make fiscal transparency part of definition. Could even legalese to omit groups like ACS.

Key is to find something simple & actionable.

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To chime in: it's not really true that Science (7 journals) is basically the same as Nature (70 journals). Yes, the Science EiC makes $500k, but the lack of profit motive means the function of the society isn't interested in more papers, it's interested in good papers. Lots of good from that.

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You're not the first to mention this, nor will you be the last, I am sure.

You can imagine in the legalese of how each funder defines non-profit, a requirement of fiscal transparency could be involved, and so leverage power to fight corruption.

Also lots of societies are great.

What's different about this idea and PlanS? PlanS required publishers to cooperate, giving them leverage in the new system.

Funders stipulating all work published in non-profits requires authors to follow funder guidelines, but doesn't involve publishers in the slightest.

That's why this can work.

Yeah I guess in that sense Science is probably the most visible non-profit journal. The other "biggest" journals (Cell, Nature, Lancet) are strictly for-profit entities.

Yes AAAS is a non-profit.

Best is a bit relative. Best as in most supporting to academia? So many small-medium societies running 1-2 journals do everything they can to reinvest in their communities.

A do-or-die moment for the scientific enterprise Reflecting on our paper “The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly”

Today, our article "The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly" is finally published in PNAS. I hope that it proves to be a wake-up-call for the whole scientific community.

reeserichardson.blog/2025/08/04/a...

Banning for-profit journals won't solve everything, but it's a necessary first step. One thing in particular that publisher money is consistently used for is lobbying against the general interest, and this is one of the greatest obstacles to political change.

Just had this convo with @neuralreckoning.bsky.social below.

I agree. I think this would be a first, actually pretty simple, step to getting away from their ground. This is not my grand vision.

Either way, agree to disagree? You imagine a very different fallout from this, but we're both just speculating. It's appreciated feedback though!

Please, please, please-submit to good journals (society + reputed publishers), respect peer review, and do your reviews with integrity. So important. Thanks to all of you who do. @steve-carpenter.bsky.social @esajournals.bsky.social #Ecosystems

Fraudulent Scientific Papers Are Rapidly Increasing, Study Finds

A disturbing study validates what many of us have observed: An increasing # of journals (& publications) are featuring “junk papers”. This is the real crisis in reproducibility, & is a natural consequence of messed up incentive system for publishers & academics & AIs

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/s...

I guess it's also worth saying: Bluesky isn't the place to hammer out legalese. You could imagine that with this directive you have to define NFP. In that language, you could work in transparency of operating costs as a requirement.

The key here is to agree on a premise, not draft policy.

As in thread, this is a buy-in that benefits from a gradual adoption by funders, not a collective action. We want buy-in to cede bit by bit towards NFPs. This builds up the infrastructure for smaller groups to take in the influx.

Ironically, I think this idea fails if it gets buy-in too quickly.

On short timescales, of course. On long timescales, of course not.

Prices wouldn't go up in the way you're imagining. Society journals rely on editors buying in. The power, even in hosted journals, is much moreso in the hands of the society.

This is also a bit of a distracting point. There would also be tons of articles diverted to independently-run journals.

The goal here is to actually take a 1st meaningful step. This isn't the finish line, it's the start.

If society journals run by Wiley get more articles & revenue, societies can negotiate greater support (or quit). This is far better than that money going to shareholders, even if imperfect.

2/2

The same problems would exist, but key elements would be reduced.

Note: Nature = 70 journals, AAAS = 7. Science and PLOS are similar: EiC = $500k salary, few journals, NFPs.

The same problems exist for them all, but the for-profit is the one that expanded beyond its editorial standards.

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Ah ok. So you are publishing, but not affiliated to a uni with a repository.

Can you preprint to arXiv, Zenodo, ResearchSquare, heck... ResearchGate? These all provide citeable DOIs.

If they can't recruit more people, because they don't have the time/will to grow beyond their editorial means, &/or their aren't any promising recruits, then they're left having to desk-reject just to save their time so they can review the most promising stuff.

Money not part of the equation.

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Not at all. We have a genuine reasoned disagreement. Thanks for your engagement!

That's the idea. Say a part-time AE can handle 25 papers/year (easy math)... there are 100 AEs. Capacity per year = 2500 papers reviewed.

If they get 5000 submissions, they desk-reject 2500, 10k submissions? 7500

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Ah... simpler times.

Well... no... they just don't have enough editors to possibly handle all manuscripts that come through their door. And they can't just mass hire/recruit because they hand-pick editors on their own assessments of quality.

The money goes to hosting, R&D, OpenScience, marketing, salaries, etc...