A global shift towards open-access publishing is opening up new types of inequality within academia, according to research that highlights institutional ¡°stratification¡± in publishing access outcomes.

¡°Authorial and institutional stratification in open access publishing: the case of global health research¡±, published on ?last month, offers evidence of a class division between universities, whereby researchers from lower-ranking institutions with fewer resources are often left with little choice but to publish in closed-access journals because they cannot afford to pay the article-processing charges associated with open-access alternatives.

Using a database of 1,352 articles published in global health research between 2010 and 2014, a group of researchers from universities in Canada and the Netherlands examined the relationship between each academic author and their choice of publishing options when compared with their institution¡¯s place in the Times Higher Education?World University Rankings.

They found that authors working at lower-ranked universities were more likely to publish in closed journals behind a paywall and less likely to choose publishers that levied a standard article-processing charge for gold or hybrid open access.

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Academics from higher-ranked institutions were found to pay relatively higher fees for gold and hybrid open-access publications.

This could be attributed to the tendency for those affiliated with more prestigious, cash-rich universities to have access to greater resources, allowing them the luxury of choice when it came to publishing in journals, the study says.

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As a consequence, the researchers suggested, this was leading to ¡°new professional hierarchies¡± developing in contemporary publishing as open-access models become more popular.

¡°New axes of stratification are emerging in academic publishing, adding to the already complex tapestry of inequality in science,¡± the paper concludes.

The authors acknowledge that their findings might initially seem counter-intuitive because traditional subscription-based journals are typically more prestigious, but they suggest that the resources available to ¡°high-status¡± individuals mean that they are ¡°sometimes prone to being early adopters¡±.

Lead author Kyle Siler, a social science researcher from Utrecht University, said that although class divides in scientific publishing were nothing new, a growing number of universities were finding themselves in an ¡°awkward position¡± as they faced the impending transition between traditional subscription-based and open-access publishing models.

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¡°Less wealthy universities are less likely to be able to offer their faculty OA publishing options because their budgets are already stretched,¡± he told THE. ¡°Even if [those institutions] have stable funding for open-access publishing options, I think it will be a challenge for pricier journals to make themselves accessible to them, both through waiver funds and marketing.¡±

¡°An implication of [this] is that economic exclusion shifts from reading ¨C for example, when universities can¡¯t afford subscriptions to all journals ¨C to publishing, raising the ethical question of which type of exclusion is less pernicious.¡±

Reducing or eliminating the ¡°substantial profit margins¡± of for-profit publishers could make way for ¡°a more affordable, accessible [and] efficient system, whether subscription-based or open access,¡± Dr Siler continued. ¡°As scientists, we need to create and negotiate a better economic system to publish and curate our work.¡±

rachael.pells@timeshighereducation.com