The Myths of Scientific Edition

Go directly to one of the Myths

The Cost Myth
The Ownership Myth
The Metric Myth
The "Big Deal" Myth
The Efficiency Myth

Editorial committee

This awareness campaign on scientific publications was designed following an initiative of the EMS Union of European Centres of Mathematics (ERCOM) under the patronage of the EMS.

Ilka Agricola, Chair of the IMU committee on Publishing
Markus Juvonen, Community Manager of the EMS
Evelyne Miot, Chair of the EMS committee for publications
Christophe Ritzenthaler, Chair of ERCOM
Olaf Teschke, Managing Editor of zbMATH

The Cost Myth

Shine bright like a diamond

Download A2 printing version
Download A3 printing version

Good news! A growing number of high-tier journals now operate under a fairer publishing model, remaining entirely free for both authors and readers. Under this community-driven framework, the publishing process is redefined by two core principles:

Diamond Open Access: This model ensures that research remains a public good. Authors do not pay to publish, nor do readers pay to access the content, making it the ideal model to strive for. The term (sometimes also called 'platinum') was coined to distinguish it from the 'gold' models introduced by commercial publishers [1] to describe author-funded Open Science.
A fair cost: While scholarly publishing inevitably incurs costs, such as hosting, typesetting, and archiving, these are significantly lower than the prices charged by commercial giants. Indeed, research shows that actual service costs [2] are a fraction of the 'inflated' Article Processing Charges (APCs) set by commercial publishers. These high fees are often designed to maximize shareholder dividends [3,4,5] rather than support the science itself.
On the contrary, publishing models like Subscribe to Open [6] promote an equitable publishing ecosystem. In contrast to commercial entities, academic-led journals typically reinvest any modest surpluses directly back into the mathematical community to fund grants, conferences, and future research.

The Resource: Comprehensive directories of Diamond Open Access or Subscribe to Open journals are maintained by organizations like CIMPA or curated by dedicated researchers like Karim Ramdani.

The bottom line: you are the author and the primary driver of scientific value. Don’t assume high fees equal high prestige. Before submitting, consult the directories above, weigh the true cost of publishing, and, when possible, choose to support journals that reinvest in your community rather than a corporate bottom line.

References:

Wikipedia page, Diamond Open Access
Grossmann A and Brembs B, Current market rates for scholarly publishing services, F1000Research, 2021
Beigel et al., The Drain of Scientific Publishing, November 17, 2025
El País, The fall of a prolific science journal exposes the billion-dollar profits of scientific publishing, November 28, 2025
The Guardian, Academic journals are a lucrative scam – and we’re determined to change that, July 16, 2024
EMS Press: https://ems.press/open-access/subscribe-to-open

The Ownership Myth

A Practical Guide to Navigating Scientific Publication Agreements

You did the research, you wrote the paper, and it finally got accepted. Congratulations! But before your work sees the light of day, the publisher will ask you to sign a copyright agreement.
Do you know what you are actually giving away? Here is what every researcher needs to know about publication rights.
The trap: exclusive tights transfer
Many commercial publishers ask you to sign an agreement transferring all your rights exclusively to them. This gives them the unlimited right to publish, translate, and distribute your work globally, forever.
Why it matters? Giving up exclusive rights is an unfair term. It means you lose control over your own research and may even be restricted from sharing it with colleagues or students. As an author, you should always aim to keep control of your work.
Take back control: the rights retention strategy
If a publisher’s agreement does not explicitly allow Green Open Access, you don't have to surrender. You can use the Rights Retention Strategy (developed by cOAlition S).
How it works? You decide from the moment of submission that all versions of your paper (preprint and postprint) carry a CC-BY license. You simply include a standard rights retention statement in your manuscript when you first submit it.
Learn how to apply it: cOAlition S Rights Retention Strategy
Check before you submit!
Before you submit your paper, look up the journal's copyright policies using the Open Policy Finder. Many academic or non-profit publishers allow you to share your postprint version on a public depository, under a free licence.
Note: Many European countries have specific Open Science policies and extra-legal rules designed to protect researchers. It is highly recommended to familiarize yourself with the Open Science recommendations in your country!
Copyright 101: know your legal standing
Intellectual property laws differ by country, but with over 180 nations (including all of Europe) as signatories to the Berne Convention, your work is protected almost globally. Under this framework, your work is generally treated according to the laws of the country where it is being used, a principle known as 'National Treatment.'
Under international standards, your copyright is divided into two distinct parts:

Moral Rights: these rights allow you to claim authorship and object to any distortion or modification of your work that harms your reputation. While the Berne Convention sets a minimum standard, the strength of these rights varies. In many countries (like France), moral rights are perpetual and cannot be sold. However, in others (like the US or UK), while you cannot 'sell' these rights, you can be asked to waive them in a contract. If you waive them, you effectively lose your legal power to object to how your work is modified.
Economic Rights: these rights dictate who can legally reproduce, distribute, and financially benefit from your work. You are the original owner of these rights. You can transfer them entirely to a publisher (giving up ownership), or you can grant them a license (permission) to publish while you keep the ownership for yourself.

The bottom line: you are the creator. Don't sign away or waive your rights by default. Be especially wary of clauses asking for a "full waiver of moral rights," as this can strip you of your connection to your work even if the law technically calls them "inalienable." Read the contract, negotiate for a license instead of a transfer, and protect the future of your research.

Download A2 printing version
Download A3 printing version

The Metric Myth

Bibliometrics: don’t count on them

Download A2 printing version
Download A3 printing version

The impact factor of a journal, the H-index, and other bibliometric quantities can be easily manipulated. The small absolute number of publications produced by working mathematicians makes our discipline particularly vulnerable to bibliometric manipulation.

Citation cartels are groups of individuals that agree to cite authors from their network and their preferred journals, regardless of their relevance for their work.
Mega-journals are journals with poor peer review publishing huge numbers of articles per year for which the authors pay; they did not exist before the advent of Open Access. Multiple scandals and retractions prove that it is just not possible to maintain high scientific quality in a huge quantity of publications.
The impact factor of a journal does not say anything about the relevance of a single article published in it. It was designed as a quantitative tool to measure the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal was cited, not to measure the scientific quality of individual research articles.
Commercial databases like Web of Science, Scopus, or Google Scholar include many more journals than those deemed worthwhile by the mathematical community, and they contain a relevant number of mistakes (double counts, misprints, fake identities etc.); all bibliometrics based on these databases are therefore flawed and biased by construction.

The science junk industry: don’t waste your money on them

Fraudulent individuals can choose from a wide range of services that will inflate their publication lists and boost their bibliometrics and that of their preferred publication outlets.

Paper mills are offering finished articles and co-authorship for sale, usually together with a speedy publication guarantee. Cases of blackmail after using their services have been reported.
Citation brokers are buying citations in indexed journals for their clients, typically for a 'thank you fee' paid in cryptocurrency.
Predatory journals will publish anything as long as the author is willing to pay the 'article processing charges' (APCs). Often, they build an ecosystem of dependencies: predatory conferences (with proceedings published in their own journal), special issues, prestigious sounding prizes and 'best-paper' awards, APC waivers for favourable peer review, membership in prize committees and editorial boards etc.

The shift toward Open Access has been exploited by entities that prioritize profit margins over mathematical accuracy. On the other side, traditional mathematical journals (like most of those indexed by zbMath Open and MathReviews) do NOT charge APCs to the authors: publication in the most reputable math journals was always and is free of charge.

AI: Not the cause of the problem, but a fire accelerant

The advent of sophisticated AI language models has made it cheaper and easier than ever to produce fake research articles whose sole purpose is to be counted as 'published' and cited, rather than actually read.

Tortured phrases are incorrect scientific vocabulary that stems from machine translation / paraphrase / generation of texts. They are used as one indicator for extensive AI usage. Examples from published papers are: 'halfway differential condition' instead of 'partial differential equation', 'worldwide constant' instead of 'global constant', 'phantom examinations' instead of 'spectral analysis'.
AI generated fake articles pose an immense challenge to publishers, editors, but also preprint servers like arXiv. Human expertise is a limited and expensive resource, whereas AI generation is quick and cheap.

'AI slop detection' software is urgently needed to prevent the traditional publishing and reviewing culture from collapsing under the burden of fake science.

The bottom line

Bibliometric quantities like the Impact Factor and H-index are easily manipulated. A thriving industry of 'APC-driven junk science' prioritizes publication volume over scientific rigor, making raw metrics an unreliable measure of research value and leading to a swamp of junk articles. The recommendations of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) and the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) on how to fight fraudulent publishing are a good starting point for countermeasures.

References:

Ilka Agricola et al., Fraudulent publishing in the mathematical sciences, Notices Am. Math. Soc. 72, No. 9, 1038-1049 (2025).
Ilka Agricola et al., How to fight fraudulent publishing in the mathematical sciences: joint recommendations of the IMU and the ICIAM, Notices Am. Math. Soc. 72, No. 10, 1179-1183 (2025).
Moritz Schubotz, Jan Philip Solovej, Fraudulent publishing in mathematics: a European call to action and how information infrastructure can help, Eur. Math. Soc. Mag. 138 (2025), pp. 33–35.

The "Big Deal" Myth

Watch your step. APC under cover

Transformative ["Big Deal"] Agreements are national agreements for combined reading access and open-access publishing fees which have been installed in several European countries. While marketed as a bridge to a purely Open Access future and a way to reduce library costs, these deals often create structural barriers, particularly for the field of mathematics.

Big Deal negotiations are complex and almost exclusively favour the "Big Four" (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis). This makes the current oligopoly situation worse. Especially, quality mathematics publishing is strongly based on comparatively small society and university publishers which are sidelined in this model.

Expectations that these deals would lower costs have rarely materialized. Instead, they tend to "gobble up" available institutional funds. These agreements prioritize hybrid journals, making them financially attractive for the publisher while actually blocking the path to true, full Open Access. This creates a "pay-to-play" environment that disadvantages smaller or less-funded institutions, disciplines and countries.

'Big Deal' policies often create wrong incentives of quantitative-oriented and fast publishing, with detrimental effects especially for mathematics: Most money for publishing is allocated for subjects with expensive commercial journals and often distributed by first-come-first-serve procedures, which is contrary to the traditional quality-oriented publication culture in mathematics.

References:

V. Mehrmann et al., Open Access Publishing in Mathematics, Eur. Math. Soc. Newsl. 114, 3-4 (2019)
A. Farley et al. Transformative agreements - Six myths, busted, Scholarly Communication, 82, 7 (2021)
W. B. Schmal, How transformative are transformative agreements? Evidence from Germany across disciplines, Scientometrics, Vol. 129, pages 1863–1889, (2024)
N. Jahn, How open are hybrid journals included in transformative agreements?, Quantitative Science Studies 2025; 6 242–262
G. Halevi, The "Big Deal" in Scientific Journal Subscriptions and the Transition to Transformative Agreements, SCImago Lab, 2025

K. Shearer, Transformative agreements are not the key to open access, Times Higher Education Blog, 2022
O. Teschke, Green, gold, platinum, nickel: on the status of open access in mathematics, Eur. Math. Soc. Newsl. 110, 60-63 (2018)

Download A2 printing version
Download A3 printing version

The Efficiency Myth

Trust is built through review

Download A2 printing version
Download A3 printing version

The rise of predatory publishing has created a minefield for researchers. The primary indicator of a deceptive journal is the prioritization of profit and speed over scientific integrity. To protect your work and your reputation, be alert to the following red flags:

The Speed Trap: a common warning sign is the promise of unusually rapid acceptance or publication, particularly when tied to an author fee. But meaningful editorial assessment and independent peer review are time-intensive processes. Hence, ‘guaranteed’ timelines usually indicate that peer review is superficial, bypassed, or treated as a mere formality to justify the collection of fees.

Opaque Financials and Pressure: predatory outlets often use aggressive or deceptive tactics regarding "Article Processing Charges" (APCs). You shall be wary of unclear fee structures, such as charges that are only revealed after an article has been accepted. In general, high-pressure tactics to pay quickly are a hallmark of predatory behaviour, rather than professional scholarly communication.

Lack of Transparency: legitimate journals operate with "open curtains" regarding their operations. A journal is likely predatory if it offers vague descriptions of its peer-review process, obscure or unverifiable editorial board members, or misleading information regarding its physical location or indexing status.

The bottom Line: speed is no substitute for rigor. Before submitting your manuscript or committing to any fees, perform a "sanity check" on the journal’s transparency. Use community-standard tools like the Think. Check. Submit. campaign to verify that a journal is a trusted venue for your research. Don’t jeopardize your reputation!

References:

EMS page on predatory publishing
Richtig, G., Berger, M., Lange-Asschenfeldt, B., Aberer, W. and Richtig, E. (2018), Problems and challenges of predatory journals, J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol, 32: 1441-1449
Think Check Submit provides a list of sanity checks

High-risk signals	Trustworthy signals
Promises of acceptance/publication in a few days (or ‘guaranteed’ decisions).	Peer review policy is clearly described (who reviews, what is checked, typical timelines).
Payment emphasized as the main step; invoices before review is complete.	Editorial board and contact details are transparent and verifiable.
Peer review description is vague, missing, or inconsistent with the timeline.	Fees (if any) are disclosed upfront and never tied to ‘guaranteed acceptance’
Pressure tactics: ‘submit today’, flattery, repeated email solicitations.	Journal follows recognized publishing-ethics guidance and transparent practices.
Fees appear late (e.g., only after acceptance) or policies are hard to find.	Editors can explain how integrity issues are handled (corrections, retractions, conflicts of interest).