Paywalls in Research Papers

I think everyone’s been there when looking for research papers. When you’ve seemingly found the perfect one that's exactly what you're looking for, only to encounter a paywall just before getting a good look..

Those sites that have a paywall is a form of publishing called non-open-access publishing. Meaning that it is free for researchers to submit and have their papers peer-reviewed and published but require viewers on the other end to pay a fee; oftentimes a very expensive one at that. For example, one of the biggest publishers, Taylor and Francis Online, charge individuals a fee of $50 for full access to their articles for 48 hours, or $650 for access for 30 days. An extremely expensive amount of money especially if you are looking for just that one article.

However, these institutions require funds and paywalls cannot completely be villainised. They make scientific knowledge more accessible and of a higher quality by conducting peer reviews and quality checks and also by just accumulating knowledge in one place for anyone to access anywhere at any time. That being said, their profit margins are high, and this leads to accessibility issues that can be improved upon. Some journals cost an average of $3000 - $4000 for them to publish. However, they end up making around $5000 per article, resulting in profit margins ranging from 20-30%, and in extreme cases, even 50%.Every year, the journal publishing industry generates billions of dollars that are funnelled back to their shareholders, rather than being reinvested in education or research.

There is also the option to log into your institution, like a library or university. Especially if you are a researcher who needs this resource the most, you are most likely to have access to one. Universities may have a subscription already, but these fees are also incredibly expensive for them and they cannot possibly subscribe to every journal. In 2018 the University of California cancelled their $11 million annual subscription, around 25% of their entire budget for journal articles, to the largest publishing house Elsevier. This was done after negotiations with Elsevier were unsatisfactory. The University of California is a system of public universities in the United States that is funded by the public, who can also access articles from Elsevier with the UC’s subscription and function as a public library. Without their subscription to Elsevier, the public will no longer be able to access the research that they funded.

But there is also another option of publishing called open-access publishing where readers can view the articles for free, and researchers pay for their research to be published instead. This greatly increases the accessibility of that information to both the general public and researchers.

As we now see a shift towards open access publishing, research and knowledge will hopefully continue to become more accessible to both researchers and the general public.