Make China Journals Open Access, Says Top Scientist

A leading Chinese scientist has appealed for funding to make many Chinese journals open access and give priority to domestic science publications to boost the country's scientific journals. "We can invest billions of yuan in big science projects, but we also need to invest a tiny 200 million yuan (US$29.4 million) in an open access fund to help the growth of our journals," said Zhu Zuoyan, the recently retired deputy head of the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) at a forum on journal development last week (27 August).

He says government-funded open access journals would be a breakthrough for science publishing in China. Zhu said most international journals are commercially run, which leads them to publish relatively slowly to reduce editorial costs. Domestic journals can publish papers faster.

He added that open access journals prioritise academic merits over commercial interests. A government-funded open access initiative would reduce or eliminate the cost of publishing — enabling Chinese journals to attract more high-quality papers and improve their impact. Zhu's remarks come amidst complaints that Chinese scientists are publishing more in overseas journals than domestic ones, which some say endangers the existence of the 5,000 scientific journals published in China.