Scientific publishing is broken.
A handful of global corporations control most academic journals. They charge universities billions of dollars annually, while the researchers who write, review, and edit the papers are rarely paid — and often locked out by paywalls themselves.
- Access is limited: Over 70% of peer-reviewed research is hidden behind expensive paywalls, out of reach for scientists in emerging countries, independent researchers, and even students.
- Slow and inefficient: Peer review can take 6–12 months. Editors are overwhelmed. Reviewers are unpaid. Critical discoveries sit unpublished.
- Unfair value distribution: Publishers profit. Researchers work for free. Reviewers remain invisible. Institutions pay multiple times — to produce, publish, and read the same work.
- Outdated & centralized: A system built for paper journals in the 20th century still controls knowledge flow in the 21st. It’s slow, expensive, and exclusionary — especially for Global South researchers.