Lack of Funds for Publications form a Threat to Young Medical Authors

Background: Young medical authors face several problems. One of them is their common limited access to funds that may be used to pay the Article Processing Charges (APC) of medical journals. Objectives: It is investigated whether the APCs are high, indeed, and – if so – how this problem for young authors can be tackled. Significance: It is important that good research is published in reliable and well-read journals. Measures should therefore be taken to avoid that young researchers publish in journals that are not or hardly read, only because they offer low APCs. Methodology: Analysis of the APCs of medical journals is carried out by searching for the APC on the website of the hundreds of journals that approached the present authors during one year with a request to submit a manuscript. Results: It is found that most journals have APCs that are too high for junior authors to pay personally. Almost all journals with an affordable APC have a quality below internationally acceptable standards and are not or hardly read (or cited). Young authors commonly see the advantages of publishing in low-APC journals on the short term, but they can difficultly overview the disadvantages on the longer term. This makes the ‘battle’ against low-quality journals difficult. Conclusions: Young authors should be warned that choosing a journal on the basis of a low APC may affect their scientific reputation. All medical institutes and organizations were research is carried out should develop a procedure that enables young authors to avoid publishing in low-quality journals, by supplying grants to cover the APC asked by appropriate high-quality journals.