A new study commissioned by the Knowledge Exchange argues that there can be benefits to publishers if they switch to a model based on submission fees. Knowledge Exchange is a pan-European partnership between DFG (Germany), JISC (UK), DEFF (Denmark) and SURFfoundation (The Netherlands) who share a common vision to make scholarly and scientific content openly available on the internet.
The report 'Submission fees - A tool in the transition to Open Access?', written by Mark Ware, concludes that this model could be particularly relevant to journals with a high rejection rate. They could combine submission fees with article processing charges in order to make the transition to open access easier.
In certain disciplines, notably economic and finance journals and in some areas of the experimental life sciences, submission fees are already common.
The model has attracted interest but publishers regard the risks, particularly those involved in any transition, as outweighing the perceived benefits. In addition, the advantages offered by submission fees might improve the overall system but do not provide publishers and authors with direct incentives to change to Open Access (OA). To support any transition, funders, institutions and publication funds could explicitly allow submission fees as a cost as this is often unclear in their policies, says the report.
Further, the report states that author acceptance of submission fees is critical to the model's success. There is evidence that authors will accept fees in some circumstances but this area does require further research. Based on the interviews and the modelling used in the study the most suitable way to strengthen the Open Access business model is for authors to pay a submission fee plus an article processing fee. Both fees need to be set at levels that are acceptable to authors while securing a meaningful mix of revenues for the publisher.
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