Knowledge Under Threat: Latin American Researchers Respond to the Marketization of Science

2025-07-22

On July 21, 2025, the journal Ciência da Informação Express published the collective opinion article “The Veiled Threat to Diamond Open Access: When Indicators Become Weapons of Exclusion”, authored by researchers from across Latin America committed to the principles of open science and informational justice.

The article offers a critical analysis of the recent methodological change implemented by the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), which began estimating Article Processing Charges (APCs) even for journals operating under the diamond open access model—that is, journals that charge no fees for reading, submission, or publishing. According to the authors, this practice reinforces the marketization of knowledge by linking scientific quality to the ability to pay, disproportionately affecting journals from the Global South.

“Confusing economic value or commercial prestige with academic quality perpetuates exclusionary dynamics that favor those who can pay and penalize those sustaining equitable, non-profit models,” the authors warn.

The article highlights several concerns:

  • The distortion caused by using citation-based metrics as primary criteria for editorial evaluation;

  • The structural impact on non-commercial scientific journals, particularly in Latin America;

  • The potential erasure of sustainable, publicly funded editorial models;

  • The need to value diverse approaches to scientific communication that respect local contexts and realities.

The article also proposes urgent and feasible measures, such as:

  • Clearly indicating when a journal has zero APCs, to prevent misinterpretation and safeguard the reputation of diamond open access journals;

  • Supporting platforms such as DOAJ and OpenAlex that correctly recognize the characteristics of the diamond model;

  • Adopting contextualized and responsible metrics aligned with UNESCO’s recommendations and declarations such as DORA, FOLEC–CLACSO, and the Manifesto for Socioterritorial Metrics;

  • Providing direct and sustained public funding for scientific communication infrastructures (journal portals, repositories, open indexing systems) linked to publicly funded research projects.

As editor-in-chief of Revista Biblios, an international diamond open access journal, I express our deep concern about the estimation of APCs on platforms such as SCImago Journal Rank. This practice misleads authors, reviewers, and institutions by attributing nonexistent costs to journals that are committed to science as a public good. By equating free access with editorial devaluation, the indicator directly harms the reputation and sustainability of initiatives like ours. We advocate for the immediate correction of this criterion, with a clear indication of zero APCs for journals operating under the diamond model.

 The article is available in open access at the following link:

 https://cienciadainformacaoexpress.ufla.br/index.php/revista/article/view/152
 DOI: https://doi.org/10.60144/v6i.2025.152

Lúcia da Silveira – Co-author of the article and Editor-in-Chief of Revista Biblios https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1118-2121