New report based on comments from over 2,500 global researchers captures what they want from the academic publishing industry

Read actual comments from global researchers on how scholarly publishing can be improved

(May 23, 2019; London UK) A few months ago, Editage—a leading global scholarly communications company—released a comprehensive report based on a global author survey capturing the views of almost 7000 researchers on different aspects of scholarly publishing. In the last question of the survey, researchers were asked to provide comments on what they would like to change about the academic publishing system. As a qualitative follow up to the survey report, Editage has now released a report that analyzes all comments received in response to this question.

The main themes that emerged as problems that researchers want addressed were delays in publication, peer review quality and processes, high publishing-related costs, complexity of journal guidelines and systems, and inadequate adoption of open access. Other notable themes included different types of biases in publishing, problems specifically faced by early career researchers, and lack of transparency in the system.

Capturing the comments of over 2,500 researchers around the world, this Editage report represents one of the largest populations of researchers whose open-ended responses have been studied in relation to academic publishing. Furthermore, over 90% of respondents who said changes are needed in the system provided supporting comments, which is a staggering volume of responses for the last question of an exhaustive survey.

“Given the high author participation we saw for the entire survey, we knew that we would obtain significant insights once we delved into the open-ended comments the respondents had provided,” says Clarinda Cerejo, Associate Vice President, Scholarly Communications, at Editage. “What we had not expected was the sheer number of supporting comments we would receive for this particular question, despite it being the last question. Many of the comments were elaborate, incisive, practical, and heartfelt. It was always our intention, through the survey, to make the voices of global researchers heard loud and clear within the scholarly publishing community, and what better way than by analyzing and presenting the actual comments of our survey respondents! We believe that this report will directly speak to journals, publishers, and academic societies who serve researchers and want direct access to their opinions.”

This new report, released just ahead of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) annual conference 2019, one of the largest global conferences in the scholarly communications industry, is likely to trigger a lot of interesting conversations. Editage also intends to make public the most meaningful comments received through the survey, so that they can serve as a guiding light for bringing about meaningful changes in scholarly publishing.

About Editage
Founded in 2002, Cactus Communications is a global scholarly and medical communications company with offices in Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, London, New Jersey, Mumbai, and Singapore. CACTUS operates through two main verticals: Editage, a leading consumer technology business that provides editorial, translation, and digital solutions, and Cactus Life Sciences, which provides rich strategic and tactical content solutions to stakeholders associated with global pharma and device-making. The team, comprising over 750 full-time employees and 2,500 freelancers, has served close to 200,000 researchers, doctors, and scientists across 173 countries and has transformed over 900,000 papers across 1,200 disciplines.