China shifts research funding focus away from journal fees

Facing rising international journal article processing charges, China is advancing reforms in its scientific research evaluation system, aiming to channel more funding into actual scientific work and improve research quality.

Traditionally, journal publishing operated on a subscription model, where readers paid and authors published for free. In recent years, the industry has shifted to an open-access model to facilitate the dissemination of scientific knowledge, allowing free reader access while authors pay fees to cover publishing costs. However, increasing article processing charges have become a heavy financial burden for scientists.

A report from the National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences showed that the average article processing charge exceeded $3,000 per article in 2024. Chinese scholars published 313,500 such articles, accounting for about one-third of the global total, and spent $909 million, a year-on-year increase of more than 20 percent.

The phenomenon of China's research funding "subsidizing" international publishers has long troubled researchers, who argue that high processing charges may entrench hierarchies, amplifying disparities in academic discourse power through financial means.

A graduate student at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics and Technology told China Central Television that if article processing charges consume a large share of research funding, experimental work will inevitably be affected.

Yan Ning, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, wrote on her Weibo account late last year that while the open-access model may have been well-intentioned, processing charges have become "excessively expensive." She added that her laboratory would no longer pay to publish articles requiring such fees, opting instead to post work as preprints and publish in journals only if fee waivers are offered.

"It feels like researchers are being exploited, making us suffer. Why should the funding we apply for be taken by middlemen?" Yan told China Central Television. She noted that many publishing groups are publicly traded companies with commercial interests and expressed hope for restoring a healthy publishing ecosystem as a vital part of the academic community.

To break the deadlock, China is promoting its own international academic journals. One example is Vita, a life sciences and biomedicine journal that will publish its print edition in June. Its main edition is open to researchers worldwide free of charge, and a study from Yan's team is the first paper published online in the journal.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences has stopped using academic funds and central government allocations to pay publication fees for 30 international open-access journals starting in March, including Nature Communications, Cell Reports and Science Advances, according to the journal Science. In addition, reimbursement for processing charges is prohibited for articles published in journals suspected of academic misconduct. The measures aim to improve oversight of academic publishing and bring charges under reasonable control.

A series of other measures has also been introduced to guide research outputs toward domestic journals. Revised guidelines for national science and technology awards issued by the Ministry of Science and Technology call for a gradual increase in the proportion of major publications in domestic journals. The National Natural Science Foundation of China has also introduced a requirement that for all projects funded since 2025, at least 20 percent of representative papers must be published in domestic journals.

Some universities have relaxed faculty recruitment and evaluation criteria, moving away from an exclusive focus on publication metrics to encourage a more flexible research environment. Tsinghua University now asks faculty to submit up to five works that best represent their academic level — including papers, monographs or patents — instead of emphasizing publication quantity or impact factors. Fudan University has established a basic research pilot zone to support long-term original research over more than 10 years.

Zhao Dongyuan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and dean of the Xianghui Institute of Fudan University, highlighted the importance of such measures in giving original research more space in an interview with China Central Television.

"Over a 10-year period, instead of evaluation, we organize salons and academic activities where researchers present their work. These presentations allow us to observe the progress of their research," Zhao said. "By fostering such a supportive research environment, we enable them to achieve significant breakthroughs."