High publishing costs – Stockholm University backs alternative models

In 2025, Stockholm University paid just over SEK 39 million to publish 1,120 open-access scientific articles, according to the report “Stockholm University’s Costs for Open Access 2025.”

When the costs of both publishing and access rights are combined, the total expenditure amounts to nearly SEK 45 million. At the same time, 94 percent of the university’s articles were published as open access. This reflects strong progress toward open science, but also highlights a costly system in which universities pay both to read and to publish research.

Alternative models are neccessary

Against this backdrop, Wilhelm Widmark, University Librarian and Senior Advisor to the President for Open Science at Stockholm University, is leading efforts to develop alternative publishing models, for example through Stockholm University Press.

– Diamond open access means that the publishing channel should be non-profit, owned by academia, and that neither reading nor publishing requires payment. Stockholm University Press has already taken steps in this direction by introducing the diamond model for its journals and is trying to find ways to do the same for monographs, says Wilhelm Widmark.

To finance this development, Stockholm University Press is affiliated with international collaborations such as Open Journals Collective and Open Books Collective, which collect and distribute funding to quality-driven open access initiatives. In addition, the number of so-called diamond journals is growing, and the university co-finances several of them.

During the autumn, another alternative is expected: the publishing platform Open Research Europe, where both publishing and reading will be free of charge for Swedish researchers through funding from the European Commission as well as the Swedish research funders the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), Forte, and Formas.

Costs and incentives remain a challenge

At the same time, the challenge of managing high costs within the existing system remains, where Stockholm University in 2025 paid to publish 1,120 articles.

– There is always a limit to what we can finance, but we have good control over costs. However, we should work to reduce costs to the major commercial publishers and try to shift publishing to the alternative publishing channels, says Wilhelm Widmark.

Another important issue concerns researchers’ incentives to publish in highly ranked journals, often dominated by commercial actors.

– The current merit system risks locking researchers into these channels. A prerequisite for the scientific publishing landscape to change is that the merit system changes, he says.

Stockholm University has already taken certain steps, including no longer allocating internal funding based on bibliometric measures and joining CoARA—an international initiative to reform research assessment.

Read the full report on the university's costs for scientific publishing

More about Open Science at Stockholm University

Text: Cecilia Burman