With thanks to the wonderful team @hansonmark.bsky.social
@lariviev.bsky.social @paolocrosetto.bsky.social @gemmaderrick.bsky.social @stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
@pagomba.bsky.social @stephenpinfield.bsky.social @jameswilsdon.bsky.social and @danbrockington.bsky.social [7/7]

For more on the drain, see our preprint at arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 and this infographic: zenodo.org/records/1759...

They show us all that there are other ways of doing things (in academia, and in publishing).

Especially when researchers, academic institutions and funders work together. [5/n]

Research institutions and research publishing practices have developed differently in other geographical/linguistic regions. In some places, alternative publishing models have survived or (with new tech) been created. Think: SciELO, Redalyc, and Érudit. [4/n]

For me, as a historian, I was struck by the extent to which the dominant discourse around 'academic publishing and its problems' is really about 'academic publishing in the global north and/or the anglo-sphere' - and is a consequence of the specific history of those regions.

This is not simply about the dominance of a few large for-profit publishers, but about the entire system of hyper-competitive, publication-metric-obsessed academia that has emerged in the last 50 years or so. [2/n]

It is clear what we need. It is to re-communalise academic publishing. Its costs funding are met by learned societies and their funders; profits go back to research, as do the data it generates. Researchers repeatedly call for this. tinyurl.com/bdekus68rofits

I'd suggest that there's also a difference between giving your time by refereeing for a professional/disciplinary society that you believe to be a Good Thing, and giving your time by refereeing for a for-profit publisher. The latter situation has become more common than it was.

So frustrating when that happens! (I spent some time on the history of the Royal Society's code of conduct for fellows... and then that story got shunted off the agenda by something else. Grr.)

Postdoc research fellowship (NOT a 2-yr teaching fellowship). Both because of the lack of jobs for recent PhDs, but also because you might get to collaborate with that postdoc, and that might be fun.

'Since the Lloyd’s Register Foundation reported in 2018 that fewer than 3% of statues in the UK were of real, non-royal women, several campaigns aimed at documenting and achieving greater gender representation in public art have gained a foothold.' 2/2

Also: language. The big for-profits have been most influential in regions where English-language publishing is (or has become) common. @lariviev.bsky.social and colleagues have some fascinating results on the 'hidden diversity' in scholarly publishing, beyond the anglosphere doi.org/10.1371/jour...

True! But I think what is different now (say, 1990s on) is that referees are working in a hyper-competitive environment, juggling institutional demands for more and more (in research, teaching, impact, service), with performance management metrics... Research time is much more pressured than before

So interdisciplinary and international! Thanks @stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca @lariviev.bsky.social @paolocrosetto.bsky.social, @gemmaderrick.bsky.social,
@pagomba.bsky.social @stephenpinfield.bsky.social
@jameswilsdon.bsky.social, @danbrockington.bsky.social, Fernanda Beigel, Christine Noe

Other parts of the world had different histories of academic journal publishing (and of research and universities), and so (in some cases/places) can have a different relationship to for-profit publishers. I wish we knew more about mid/late-20thC journal publishing practices globally.