Making journal accreditation count

How money, visibility and reputation can be used to enforce public standards

In previous posts I argued that publicly funded article processing charges should be restricted to journals that meet recognised standards of editorial responsibility. Accreditation would provide the assessment mechanism. A Journal Code of Conduct would define what journals must demonstrate.

The remaining question is implementation. And as I repeat below, this is the hard part.

The relevant powers already exist, but they are spread across a broad landscape. Funders control grant expenditure. Universities control central publication funds and promotion criteria. Library consortia negotiate agreements with publishers. Indexing services influence journal visibility. Learned societies carry disciplinary authority. Publication ethics organisations define norms and procedures. Each controls part of the system.

A strong starting position would be if funding organisations were to state that public money can only be used to pay APCs to journals that are accredited — or actively undergoing assessment. Funders already attach conditions to expenditure deciding which costs are eligible, which are excluded, and what documentation is required. APCs should be treated with the same discipline.

Universities could apply the same rule to institutional publication funds. Many already manage central open-access budgets, publishing agreements and APC payment systems. Those systems could require accreditation status before payment is approved. Journals unable to demonstrate responsible editorial practice would lose access to a major source of public subsidy.

Library consortia could reinforce the same principle. When negotiating with publishers, they could require participating journals to meet recognised standards of editorial responsibility. This would bring accreditation into the financial arrangements through which large publishers already receive public money.

Indexing services provide a different kind of leverage. Visibility in major databases shapes where researchers submit their work. Accreditation should not be the sole criterion for inclusion, but it could form part of journal evaluation and retention. Journals unable to demonstrate serious editorial oversight should not receive the same standing as journals that can.

Learned societies should help define standards, advise on disciplinary differences and participate in assessment. Their involvement would help prevent accreditation from becoming a process designed around the administrative convenience of publishers. It would also help protect serious society-led and scholar-led journals from being disadvantaged by procedures built for large commercial portfolios.

Implementation will need safeguards. Accreditation must not become another business opportunity for publishers, consultants or commercial indexing services. It must not reward size, wealth or brand. The standard should remain editorial responsibility, transparent practice and accountability.

The practical steps are more or less straightforward. The harder question is how it all starts. I am certain that accreditation will not emerge because the argument is reasonable. It will require organisation. A small group needs to turn the proposal into an operational framework: a Journal Code of Conduct, accreditation criteria, assessment procedures, governance arrangements, appeal mechanisms and a route for piloting the system. Learned societies need to give the work disciplinary legitimacy. A small number of funders then need to be approached with a concrete request: make publicly funded APC payments conditional on accreditation, or on participation in the accreditation process.

It would not matter if the roll out takes time. A credible pilot would be enough. One funder, one national system, one group of universities, or one library consortium could test the model. If the process is fair and the standards are sensible, publishers would have reason to adapt. Other institutions could then join.

Public argument will likely also be persuasive. Institutions rarely change because a proposal exists, but they just might change when the costs of inaction become harder to defend than the costs of action. Researchers, learned societies and institutional leaders should therefore keep asking a simple question: why is public money being paid to journals that cannot demonstrate responsible editorial practice?

So get involved! Be willing to get involved! Who in your organisation might you turn to for support, or to prod — in order to prod higher up the chain? Who might be contacted and leaned on in, for example, learned societies to which you may belong? What about librarians and those involved in negotiation of APCs and publishing procurement agreements? And then funding organisations, who there might be pressed upon? Those who sit on governance / advisory boards have special opportunity to influence and effect change.

So let’s fight the good fight and bring about change! The system is broken, but it doesn’t mean that it cannot be fixed. Or even, I would like to think, be made to serve science and academics, better than ever before.