How Tilburg scientists can become their own open access publishers

How Tilburg scientists can become their own open access publishers

Academic publishing is a lucrative business, ruled by a handful of commercial publishers that make staggering profits from publicly funded science. To help researchers break free from those traditional publishers, Tilburg University is hosting a “do-it-yourself” publishing event on campus next week.

Self-publishing is a way for academics to circumvent the big commercial publishers that lock their scientific work behind paywalls.

“It’s not only about the commercial exploitation of commons such as science”, says Tilburg University’s open science coordinator Daan Rutten. “We see that self-publishing academics and librarians decide to come up with something different to fix the flaws of the established system. The current scientific publishing and reviewing system is not as honest, inclusive and democratic as we like to think.”   

Taking back control over academic publishing

At Tilburg University, some academics have already started seeking independence from commercial publishers. TSB researchers Marino van Zelst and Hans van Dijk, for example, are developing a new academic-led publishing system as an alternative to corporate-run journals.

During the do-it-yourself publishing event that will be held in Black Box next week, Van Zelst and Van Dijk will share their experiences with other academics who are interested in putting control of scientific publishing back in the hands of the academic community. 

The event’s speaker line-up also includes linguistics professor Johan Rooryck (Leiden University), who famously “flipped” the subscription-based Elsevier journal Lingua to a completely open access counterpart, Glossa.All Tilburg University researchers are invited to join the self-publishing event on 22 October, which will be held in Black Box from 15:00 until 18:00. Entrance is free, but registration is required. Sign up for the event via this link.

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