Peer review—the process by which academics evaluate new manuscripts involving new research—has long been a cornerstone of the academic publishing process. But are large commercial publishers exploiting the peer review process for their own financial gain?
That’s the claim made by a potential class of academics and researchers in an antitrust suit filed last week in Brooklyn against six major academic journal publishers: Elsevier, Wolters Kluwer, Wiley, Sage Publications, Taylor & Francis, and Springer Nature.
“The Publisher Defendants’ Scheme has three primary components,” the complaint states. First, the publishers have “agreed” (a claim that is key to an antitrust suit) not to compensate scholars providing peer review services. Second, the publishers have agreed to require that scholars submit their manuscripts to only one journal at a time. And third, that the publishers have agreed to prohibit scholars from “freely sharing the scientific advancements described in submitted manuscripts” while those manuscripts are under peer review, a process that can take months.
In the “publish or perish world of academia," the publishers have "essentially agreed to hold the careers of scholars hostage” the complaint, filed by named plaintiff Lucina Uddin, a UCLA neuroscientist, on behalf of a potential class of academic authors, states. The filing goes on to call the peer review process “a scheme” agreed to by publishers to bolster their profits.
“Through the Scheme, the Publisher Defendants have sustained profit margins that far exceed the most successful corporations in the economy. For instance, in 2023, Elsevier alone generated $3.8 billion in revenue from its peer-reviewed journals, with an operating profit margin of 38%,” the complaint states. “In 2023, the Publishing Defendants together received over $10 billion in revenue from their peer-reviewed journals. These astounding revenues and profits margins are sustained through collusion, and unlawfully divert billions of taxpayer dollars every year from science to the Publisher Defendants.”
The suit claims that the publishers have “formed a cartel to fix the price of peer review labor at zero” through the trade association, STM, which, on its website bills itself as “the standard bearer for the academic publishing industry.”
The peer review process—a prominent feature of the academic publishing process for commercial and nonprofit scholarly publishers alike, for journals and books—has long been the target of criticism from scholars and academics. But is there a conspiracy among major commercial publishers in place? In a statement, Wiley told reporters the suit is without merit.
