research paper average cost

How Much Does It Cost to Publish a Research Paper?

W riting and having your research paper published is a major achievement in any field of study. It is the result of many long hours of labour, investigation, and analysis.

However, the expenses of publishing a research paper leave many academics scratching their heads. “How much does it cost to publish a research paper?”

This article seeks to help researchers understand the financial complexities of academic publishing by illuminating the elements that affect the price of publishing a research paper and providing advice on how to get the best deal.

So, if you are ready and want to get the practical answer, just follow us and read the article carefully.

Table of Contents

The essentials of research paper publication costs

The costs associated with publishing a research paper involve the financial obligations related to disseminating one’s research findings to the academic and scientific community.

The costs associated with publishing have changed over time, influenced by shifts in the publishing industry.

In this section, we will explore the fundamental aspects of the costs of publishing a research paper:

1.     Submission Fees

Some journals require authors to pay a fee when submitting a work for publication. In most cases, these payments are non-refundable but go toward covering the overhead of running the peer review process.

2.     Page rates

Especially for longer articles with colour figures, traditional subscription-based publications may compel authors to pay page rates. Journal page rates vary widely and may add up to a sizable sum.

3.     Article Processing Charges (APCs)

When a manuscript is accepted for publication in an open-access journal, the journal may levy a fee known as an “article processing charge” (APC) on the author. The fees are necessary to keep the articles available to the public without cost. In general, the higher the prestige and impact factor of the journal, the more the APC will be.

4.     Overage Charges

Some open-access publications include a surcharge for papers that go over their word or page count.

5.     Colour & Figure Charges

Journals, both subscription and open access, may charge you more to use colour figures or photographs in your work. If your work requires a lot of images, these costs might soon pile up.

6.     Membership Fees

Payment for Membership: Joining a professional organization may entitle you to lower publishing expenses or even free page rates, among other perks.

7.     copyright Fees

There may be additional costs associated with publishing in open-access journals if you want to maintain certain copyright licenses or permissions, such as a Creative Commons license.

8.     Language Editing

If English is not your native tongue, you may want to use a language editing service. There will be an added expense, but the quality of your paper will increase greatly if you get this done.

9.     Open Access Policies

Some organizations and funding agencies have open-access policies that mandate authors pay APCs to get their work published in open-access journals. These costs must be accounted for in any study or funding bids.

10. Hybrid Journals

Hybrid journals are publications that may be accessed either freely or with a paid subscription. Article Processing Charges (APCs) allow authors to make their work in a paid publication available to readers without having to pay for a subscription.

Understand research paper publishing expenses to unleash knowledge. With this knowledge, researchers can easily navigate the complex publication landscape and choose the best channels to display their important work.

Implement a strategic budgeting strategy and seek financing from prestigious universities or attractive grants to manage your research dissemination expenses.

You’ll easily handle the financial issues of broadening your studies. Researchers must examine the journal’s acclaimed reputation, its broad influence, and their discriminating target audience’s special demands when choosing a publishing venue.

Researchers can guarantee their work is recognized for intellectual brilliance by carefully assessing these criteria. Master the complexities of publication cost elements to succeed in academic publishing.

By deliberately addressing these elements, researchers can raise research paper publishing costs to new heights.

Read More: Sample review comments for the research paper

Finally, the total cost of publishing a research article might vary widely depending on a number of criteria, such as the chosen publication venue, the kind of journal (open access or subscription-based), and any supplementary services.

Authors should plan for these expenses and include them in their budgets. The expenses of publishing research need to be weighed against the advantages of making the results of that study available to a larger audience.

Researchers may publish in low-cost journals, professional organizations, or institutional collaborations.

Grant submissions should also include publication fees to ensure discoveries are disseminated.

Beyond cost, writers should consider the journal’s reputation, audience, and academic importance before publishing.

Finally, understanding research paper publication costs can help researchers navigate the complex publishing landscape and optimize their impact.

By properly judging and planning for publication expenditures, researchers may optimize their influence and promote knowledge and innovation in their fields.

Now it is your turn to tell us which one of the factors is critical for determining the cost to publish a research paper on your idea and also add extra tips if we did not mention in the “How much does it cost to publish a research paper?” article.

Hybrid journals are publications that offer a choice between free access and paid subscriptions. This flexibility can influence research paper costs by affecting whether authors need to pay Article Processing Charges (APCs) to make their work available without subscription fees.

The fundamental costs of publishing a research paper include submission fees, page rates, Article Processing Charges (APCs), and potential overage charges. These costs play a crucial role in disseminating research findings to the academic and scientific community.

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Elsevier Policies

Transparent price setting.

Elsevier publishes journal articles under two separate models to suit author preferences:

Subscription articles funded by payments for reading made by subscribing individuals or institutions

Open access articles funded by payments for publishing made by authors, their institution or funding bodies, commonly known as Article Publishing Charges (APCs)

We calculate pricing for each of these models separately. Subscription prices are set excluding open access articles; in other words, open access articles are not factored in when setting subscription prices. This fundamental principle is enshrined in our strict no double dipping policy (see below).

At Elsevier, we publish more articles and at higher quality relative to other major publishers, yet our average list price per subscription article remains lower (by 2-3 times) than that of others. Since 2010, the number of articles submitted to Elsevier journals grew by 11%, and the volume of subscription articles published increased by 5% (compound average growth rate 2010-2021). Our average list price per subscription article grew by just 0.2% over that time (2011-2021) across our entire portfolio of journals.

Journal article price

Average list price per subscription article Indexed weighted average of list prices for 2021 subscription year versus articles published in 2021 taking Elsevier as baseline (Source: Publisher websites, Scopus data)

Average list price per subscription article over time 5-year (2017-2021) and 10-year (2012-2021) compound annual growth rates (Source: Publisher websites, Scopus data)

Key facts on article growth, value and quality opens in new tab/window

Frequently asked questions on pricing

What do fees pay for.

The fees that authors pay help to support the extensive work that goes into the editorial review, peer review and publishing process that ensures research is reliable and helps to accelerate progress for society

Our 2,700 journals enhance the record of scientific knowledge by applying high standards of quality in everything they publish and ensuring trusted research can be accessed, shared and built upon by others. In 2021, we received 2.5 million research papers from authors. These were carefully reviewed by our 2,000-strong in-house editorial teams in collaboration with 29,000 editors and 1.4 million expert reviewers around the world, resulting in over 600,000 articles being enhanced, indexed, published and promoted following a peer review.

Can you be more transparent in what you charge?

We are constantly striving to be more transparent in all aspects of what Elsevier does, including pricing. We try to support requests for information within the bounds of financial reporting requirements and competition rules.

How are we transparent for authors?

We provide the price of publishing gold open access on each journal homepage and in 

a central list opens in new tab/window

During the publication process, we automatically notify authors who are entitled to free or discounted gold open access, for example where there is an agreement with their institution or funder

During the publication process, we automatically notify authors who are entitled to free or discounted gold open access because they are in a lower- or middle-income country — our APC waiver policy explains this process

How are we transparent for librarians?

We provide a range of information on our  website opens in new tab/window about our pricing competitiveness; how our pricing corresponds to quality; and publishing model uptake across subscription and open access

We publicly announce significant agreements, including our open access pilots

We provide  a list of our journal subscription prices

We describe the process we follow to calculate list prices

We describe the process to ensure  we do not double dip

We also show the number of articles that are published gold open access, and the number which are financed through subscriptions, on each journal homepage, to allow librarians to validate this

Do you double dip, i.e., charge for the same article twice?

We do not ‘double dip’. We can be reimbursed for an article in two ways — through an Article Publishing Charge (APC) to publish the article and make it available to read by everyone, or a subscription fee to pay for reading the article. We either charge for publishing an article or reading an article but we never charge for the same article twice. We have a strict no double-dipping policy.

How do you help authors who cannot afford to pay to be published?

As part of our commitment to inclusion and diversity in science, we believe it is critical to support researchers from low and middle-income countries to publish gold open access, if they wish to do so. When publishing in fully open access journals, we fully waive all open access charges for authors from 69 countries ( Group A opens in new tab/window ) and give a 50% discount for authors from 57 countries ( Group B opens in new tab/window ).

We offer a choice of journals with open access publishing charges ranging from $150 to $9,900. We will also consider requests for accommodations on a case by case basis for authors who are required to publish open access but do not have the financial means to do so. We provide high-quality subscription publishing options in our journals, so authors always have a choice of how they publish.

If more authors are publishing gold open access, why don’t you reduce your subscription fees?

Subscription fees are based on a range of factors, including the volume of subscription articles, the quality of a journal, journal usage and market and competitive considerations. When calculating subscription prices, we only take into account subscription articles; the number of articles published gold open access has no bearing on the way we set subscription fees.

We publish more articles and at higher quality relative to other major publishers, yet our average list price per subscription article remains lower (by 2-3 times) than that of others. Since 2010, the number of articles submitted to Elsevier journals grew by 11%, and the volume of subscription articles published increased by 5% (compound average growth rate 2010-2021). Our average list price per subscription article grew by just 0.2% over that time (2011-2021) across our entire portfolio.

See here for more information on Elsevier article volumes, value and quality.

Article Publishing Charges (APCs)

Irrespective of the publishing model chosen by the author, our goal is to ensure articles are published as quickly as possible, subject to appropriate quality controls, and widely disseminated.

Where an author has chosen to publish open access, which typically involves the payment of an article publishing charge (APC) by the author, their institution or funding body, we make their article freely available immediately upon publication on ScienceDirect in perpetuity with the author’s chosen user license attached to it.

Elsevier’s APCs are set on a per journal basis, fees range between approximately $200 and $10,400 US Dollars, excluding tax, with prices clearly displayed on our  APC price list opens in new tab/window  and on journal homepages.

Adjustments in Elsevier’s APCs are under regular review and are subject to change. We set APCs based on the following criteria which are applied to open access articles only:

Journal quality (as measured by journal quality Field Weighted Citation Impact Tier);

The journal’s editorial and technical processes;

Competitive considerations;

Market conditions;

Other revenue streams associated with the journal.

A small percentage of titles may support more than one APC, for example when a journal supports one or more article types that require different APCs.

We do not vary the APC prices for our proprietary journals based on the user license chosen by the author. However, we also publish journals on behalf of learned societies or other third parties that reserve the right to determine their own prices and pricing policies. Any deviations in pricing from Elsevier’s standard APC price list per journal will be clearly displayed on the journal’s homepage.

Download APC prices opens in new tab/window

Fee waivers to support researchers

Our goal is to effectively bridge the digital research divide and ensure that publishing in open access journals is accessible for authors in developing countries.

We grant waivers in cases of genuine need, therefore we automatically apply APC waivers or discounts to those articles in gold open access journals for which all author groups are based in a country eligible for the  Research4Life program opens in new tab/window . When publishing in fully open access journals, we fully waive all APCs for authors from 69 countries ( Group A opens in new tab/window ) and give a 50% discount for authors from 57 countries ( Group B opens in new tab/window ).

If an author group from a non-Research4Life country cannot afford the APC to publish an article in a gold open access journal and they can demonstrate they had no research funding, we will consider individual waiver requests on a case-by-case basis.

Our waiving policy does not apply to hybrid journals. Authors publishing in hybrid journals can publish under the subscription model at no cost and make use of the  Elsevier sharing policy .

For patients and caregivers , we will consider individual waiver requests on a case-by-case basis.

Open access agreements and funding body arrangements

Elsevier supports over 2,000 institutions globally to publish open access through transformative agreements .

We have established arrangements to help authors comply with the open access requirements of the major funding bodies and how they can be reimbursed for publication fees when publishing in Elsevier journals.

Reimbursement policy

To ensure Elsevier does not charge twice for the same article, we will fully refund an APC when alternative funding is provided for the open access article. For example, where an open access article is part of a Special Issue which is later made available in its entirety on an open access basis, such as through sponsorship by an organization, we will fully refund individual APCs paid by an author or on their behalf.

Elsevier will offer a credit for use against a future open access publication in the following circumstances:

A delay in delivering open access : When an article is not available open access on ScienceDirect by the time the issue in which the article is included is published in its final version, we will offer a credit for use against a future publication with Elsevier.

Incorrect licensing : When an article is made freely available on Science Direct in final published form but does not display the author’s chosen user license due to our error, we will offer a credit for use against a future publication with Elsevier.

No refund or credit will be offered in the following circumstances:

Article retraction or removal : Elsevier has provided publishing services. The later retraction or removal of the article is typically for reasons beyond our control, and does not detract from the publishing services provided, nor from our ongoing maintenance of the scientific record, e.g., corrections to the record.

Delays resulting from editorial decisions or author changes : These are a standard part of the publishing process.

License changes : Where an author requests a change to the user license they initially chose we will endeavor to respond to these within 5 working days.

Circumstances beyond our control : This may include, for example, where natural or other disasters prevent us from fulfilling our obligations.

Article unavailable on another platform : Elsevier’s responsibility is to ensure that the definitive published versions of articles we publish are available on ScienceDirect, or any successor platform, in ways that are accessible to all.  We provide APIs to enable third party platforms to manage this process themselves, for example to identify and pull gold open access articles or to update their platforms to reflect changes subsequently made to the article, such as author license choice changes, errata, and retractions. Elsevier is not responsible for ensuring third party repositories maintain accurate metadata and full-text.

Subscription prices

Elsevier publishes subscription articles whose publication is funded by payments that are made by subscribing individuals or institutions. Subscription prices are set independent of open access articles and open access articles are not included when calculating subscription prices. Subscription prices are calculated and adjusted based on the following criteria:

Article volume

Journal quality (as measured by journal quality Field Weighted Citation Impact Tier)

Journal usage

Editorial processes

Competitive considerations

Other revenue streams such as commercial contributions from advertising, reprints and supplements

These criteria are applied only to subscription articles, not to open access articles, when setting list prices. For specific information please see our  subscription price list for librarians and agents .

Purchasing options

Elsevier provides a range of purchasing options for subscription articles which are tailored for a wide variety of people. These include:

For libraries and institutions: 

There are a number of subscription options available which are tailored according to the specific customer situation and reflect a number of factors. For customers who purchase collections these considerations include competitive considerations, market conditions, the number of archival rights they purchase, and agreement specific factors like agreement length, currency and payment terms. Collection prices are adjusted on an annual basis, and any adjustment is based on factors including competitive considerations, market conditions, the number, quality, and usage of subscription articles published, and on technical features and platform capabilities. Open access articles are not included in these calculations. Please find more details on pricing .

Individuals:  Researchers who are not affiliated to an institution, or who would simply like convenient access to a title not available from their library, can take advantage of our personal access options. These options include credit card based transactional article sale and article rental.

Please find more information on our free and low-cost access programs .

No double dipping

Elsevier does not charge subscribers for open access articles; when calculating subscription prices, we only take into account subscription articles —  we do not double dip.

Concerns around double dipping are often premised on the expectation that open access articles are replacing the number of subscription articles being published and therefore that prices should be changing to correspond to this. See here for the latest  data on Elsevier article volume growth, value and quality opens in new tab/window .

List prices for journals that publish both open access and subscription articles

Adjustments in individual journal subscription list prices will be based only on criteria applied to  subscription articles . Open access articles will not be considered in the individual journal list price. Similarly, the APC per journal will only be determined based on the criteria applied to  open access articles .

Collections

As with journal list prices, collection prices reflect subscription articles only; they are linked to the prices of individual titles in a collection, which do not count open access articles when setting prices.

Retrospective open access

To ensure we uphold our no double dipping policy and separate calculations regarding list prices from open access articles, we do not offer authors the option to make a subscription article gold open access retrospectively after publication as a general rule.

However, we appreciate that there are sometimes exceptional circumstances and we want to assist authors where possible. In such instances, authors can make a subscription article, published in a hybrid journal, gold open access up until 31 January of the following year. For example, if the article is published in March 2022, the author can make it open access up until the 31 January 2023. This cut-off date is necessary to accurately assess the open access uptake in each individual hybrid journal for the previous year which ensures we do not charge subscribers for open access content. Please contact us to request retrospective open access or for further details opens in new tab/window .

Geographical Pricing for Open Access (GPOA) Pilot details

Elsevier is piloting a program from January 2024 to set APC prices for 143 gold open access journals according to the income level of the country of the corresponding author.

For these pilot journals we will waive the APC for corresponding authors who are based in low-income countries as classified by the World Bank as of July 2023. 

For articles whose corresponding authors are based in lower-middle-countries the geo-price will be 20 percent of the APC global list price. 

Corresponding authors based in upper-middle-income countries and where R&D intensity (domestic expenditure on R&D expressed as a percentage of GDP according to OECD) is below two percent are defined in three different groups based on GNI per capita and will see a different APC geo-price based on the GNI per capita of the country ranging from 45 percent to 90 percent of the APC list price.

GNI Per Capita

*Based on World Bank - 31 July 2023

Elsevier will use GNI per Capita ( Atlas Method) opens in new tab/window as the key indicator for determining the APC pricing tier. This is a widely used economic indicator provided by the World Bank and has proved to be a useful, easily available and annually updated indicator that is closely correlated with other, nonmonetary measures of the quality of life. The  Atlas  method, with three-year average exchange rates adjusted for inflation, lessens the effect of exchange rate fluctuations and abrupt changes.

The GPOA pilot methodology calculates discounts on the list APC as a percentage of the list price differently for each group of countries. To do this, we use the middle point of each group as a reference. This middle point is determined by comparing it to the starting threshold set for high-income countries by the World Bank.

Elsevier may grant additional waivers to countries where full waiver policies are currently in place for specific reasons, or in cases where Elsevier is unable to receive payments due to trade sanctions ( read more ). The article publishing charge that applies is automatically calculated as part of the submission process and will take this into consideration.  If you have any further questions, please contact researcher support.

Country Groups

Based on the most recent GDP per capita available (up to 2022) and the World Bank Country Groups for FY 2024, valid from the 31st of July 2023

View the list of participating journals

What Is the Real Cost of Scientific Publishing?

After spending years researching, scientific researchers publish their findings to share them with the larger scientific community. It is standard procedure that peer-reviewed scientific journals charge a significant publication fee for publishing a paper , especially traditional print journals. The cost of publishing can be very high, depending on the journal selected. Recently, these publication fees have come into question, with the scientific community wondering what the real cost to publishers is.

What Costs are Involved in Publishing?

Scientific publishing costs vary from journal to journal. Most journals are unwilling to disclose their publishing costs, so estimations are typically done based upon general industry statistics and revenues. There are costs involved in publishing an article , including the staff, distribution costs, and printing fees. There is also a significant amount of work done behind the scenes that takes a paper from submission to publication. Publishers often have to edit, proofread , check for plagiarism, and send the papers for peer review , all which increase the cost of publishing.

How Much Does it Cost to Publish?

Publishing costs for journals can be high. According to one study that analyzed industry data from the consulting firm Outsell, the typical profit margins for the academic publishing industry are around 20 to 30 percent. Estimating the final cost of publication per paper based upon revenue generated and the total number of published articles, they estimate that the average cost to publish an article is around $3500 to $4000. This estimate is most likely very high, especially for open access journals that typically only publish digital copies. The cost per paper in these journals could be as low as a few hundred dollars per article.

Who Pays to Publish in Journals?

A large percentage of the cost of publishing a research paper falls upon the researchers. Most journals charge a significant fee to those submitting a paper, sometimes in the thousands of dollars. The paper’s author might have to pay these fees, although sometimes his or her university or institution has a subscription fee or otherwise covers the cost of publishing. Some journals are able to provide a much lower fee for publication because the government, a university, or a society subsidizes them.

Journals with a higher publication fee defend their costs by saying they put more effort into reviewing and editing each article, and are more selective about the articles published. Researchers continue to publish in these journals because they provide a greater prestige to the author due to their long-standing, esteemed reputation.

The Future of Journal Costs

Until there is more clarity on exactly how much each publishing house spends on publishing each article, the research community will never know what the real cost of publication is. There is pressure to lower the amount charged to authors to have an article published, and some journals are making it easier for researchers to publish their work . However, it will be years before the most well-respected and often most expensive journals begin to lower their fees, both for submitting and reading articles, making it easier for the scientific community to publish, read, and share information on the latest findings.

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How much does it cost the publisher to publish an academic article?

I am interested to know the cost of publishing an academic article. I do not mean in the simple sense of "what does a given journal charge an author to publish?" or "what does an association or publisher charge a library for access to the journal?"

Instead, I want to know the actual costs of translating a manuscript into a final publication (for web or print). This matters for open science - and open access specifically - because there is an enormous amount of debate about the financing models for open access journals. The two dominant models are one where the end-user pays (library, reader, etc.), which is often seen as antithetical to open science, and one where the author pays a fee after manuscript acceptance. Neither the charges paid by libraries nor the charges paid by authors necessarily illustrate the true cost of publishing an article (due to "prestige", between-publisher variation, profit margins, journal bundling, discounts, etc.).

So, what is the actual cost? And what are components of that cost (e.g., copyediting, typesetting, server space and internet bandwidth, etc.)? In short, if an author (or someone else) were to express academic publishing costs on a per-article basis, what would that number be?

• publications
• open-access

12 Answers 12

Ubiquity Press breaks down their £300 ($500) APC as follows :

• 38% indirect costs for things not related to the publishing of a single paper but which are needed for the business (£114 or $190)
• 34% covers editorial and production aspects, which appears to be the costs associated with producing the paper, managing submissions, responding to authors, preparing proofs, typesetting, XML etc. (£102 or $170)
• 16% is a waiver premium charged so they can offer 0 or low APCs to people who genuinely cannot pay (£48 or $80)
• 8% is used to pay for indexing, archival (in case they go bust), DOI etc (£24 or $40)
• 4% goes towards costs of billing you and taking payment (£12 or $20)

Depending on what you consider to be the actual publishing costs (here probably the 34% editorial & production costs + 8% Indexing & Archiving) you would be looking at ~ £126 or $210.

Ubiquity don't break their indirect costs down into server/platform costs; this all goes into the 38% indirect cost column.

• 15 This is excellent. I'm now left to ponder why APC's at general, high-profile journals (Science, PLoS, etc.) tend to fall in the $1000-$5000 range. –  Thomas Commented Aug 5, 2015 at 20:40
• 10 @Thomas a combination of very high profit margins for the major publishers (30-40%+, higher than almost every other industry) and systematic incompetence and inefficiency. PLoS is a little different: they charge more in order to invest heavily in outreach, campaigning, and waiving fees for those who can't afford them. –  Richard Smith-Unna Commented Aug 16, 2015 at 19:37
• 12 Is it ever written explicitly that those percentages sum up to £300? From what they write, they could sum up to £1, and the other £299 is their profit. –  Federico Poloni Commented May 2, 2018 at 14:31
• 3 According to this breakdown the publisher makes zero profit. Hard to believe. –  henning no longer feeds AI Commented Jun 22, 2019 at 15:40
• 3 @henning well the linked website says "Our fees are fully transparent - you can trust us that every penny goes towards providing a high quality, sustainable publishing service, and not towards sky-high publisher profits." So perhaps, as Gavin says, they reinvest all their profits in the company. In the US this would mean they could potentially attain non-profit status like university presses. But they are British so perhaps they are unable or there is no value in it, since they never actually use the term. –  A Simple Algorithm Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 3:31

I know this doesn't refer strictly to the final version of a paper, but the arXiv pre-print server provides a useful bit of information to contribute to this discussion. According to its website , it receives around 76,000 publications per year. Its operating costs are on the order of $826,000 per year.

You do the maths, and it comes to just over $10/article/year. This is without any of the bells and whistles that come with traditional publishing, but provides a nice baseline estimate of what it takes to publish a research article online.

It depends to an extent on how technically-savvy the author community is, and thus what services they need or do not need to be done for them.

For computer science journals, the cost of production is extremely low because authors can typically be expected to do their own typesetting.

An efficient, peer-reviewed, top quality journal can thus be run at a cost of just $6.50 per paper. There is an excellent, detailed breakdown of this figure given by Stuart Shieber about the Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR) here .

• 9 Might be illuminating to get the perspective of the Journal of Statistical Software which has been running out UCLA for well over a decade. AFAIK main cost was a RA running the editorial desk plus custom programming. But JSS is about to move ... –  Dirk Eddelbuettel Commented Aug 15, 2015 at 21:33
• I agree, that would be very illuminating. The more data from a variety of journals and disciplines the better! –  rmounce Commented Aug 17, 2015 at 13:29

The closest thing that I was aware of (before reading the other answers - thanks for these) was a report about SciELO. It states that, for Brazilian journals within their portfolio, it costs about USD 200-600 per article from submission via peer review and publication to dissemination and archiving.

It also gives a more detailed breakdown:

Considering the overall operation of the SciELO Brazilian collection, including the costs related to technical co-operation for the development and interoperation of the other national and thematic collections, the online up-to-date publication of the entire collection averages about US$90 per each new article. This estimate includes the actual publishing of the new article ($56 per article, or 62% of the total cost); the operation of the SciELO network portal ($4.20, or 5%), which provides access and retrieval to all of the collections, journals, and articles; SciELO governance, management, and technical co-operation ($2.90, or 3%); the development and maintenance of the technological platform ($22.70, or 25%); and the marketing, dissemination, and expansion of the network ($4.20, or 5%). Alternatively, if the complete editorial flow, from the reception of manuscripts, the peer-review process, editing, and the online SciELO publication, is taken into account, the total cost for each new SciELO Brazilian collection article is estimated to be between US$200 and $600.

• 1 SciELO also had a blog post blog.scielo.org/en/2013/09/18/… –  Nemo Commented Nov 8, 2018 at 20:08

The cheapest journals are typically those controlled directly by academics themselves, although they're not necessarily the most efficient.

There is now (2019) a more comprehensive study of the costs by Alexander Grossmann and Björn Brembs​ :

Here we provide a granular, step-by-step calculation of the costs associated with publishing primary research articles, from submission, through peer-review, to publication, indexing and archiving. We find that these costs range from less than US$200 per article in modern, large scale publishing platforms using post-publication peer-review, to about US$1,000 per article in prestigious journals with rejection rates exceeding 90%. The publication costs for a representative scholarly article today come to lie at around US$400. We discuss the additional non-publication items that make up the difference between publication costs and final price.

Another article from a while ago, Roger Clarke (2007) , finds that for-profit publishers spend thousands of dollars per article on functions which a fully open access and non-profit journal doesn't need or want:

For–profit publishers have higher cost [...] much greater investment in branding, customer relationship management and content protection. [...] a computed per–article cost of US$3,400 compared with US$730 [for non-profit electronic journal].

However, prominent open science advocate Martin Paul Eve warns about The Problems of Unit Costs Per Article .

The problems are well illustrated by the very transparent article by eLife (2020), eLife Latest: The costs of publishing , which shows the differences between fixed and variable costs and the relationship with acceptance rate. Mind you, eLife is a very particular case because of its high selectivity and expensive ways of functioning, for instance it shells out hundreds of dollars to editors and reviewers (on average by published article, so less than half that for each reviewed article).

My own older summary follows.

Some universities run their own OJS instances, either in house or with some external contractors. Hosting often relies on existing infrastructure and staff time is often borrowed from employees the institution already has, so the costs are rarely easy to calculate, but we can figure out the order of magnitude.

For example, take the University of Bologna and the University of Milano : they publish 28 and 23 journals respectively (mostly in humanities), for a total of over 400 and over 600 articles per year respectively (according to DOAJ). For context, this size is comparable to top 15 publishers of OA Italian publications , where the biggest pure OA publisher has around 600 articles per year and the others vary between 500 and 2000.

They're both run with approximately 1 FTE "reserved" employee or less, as far as I know, which costs around 30 k€/year considering the national contract and pension contributions. Additionally they spend a few thousands euro/year on technical support. Even if you triple that amount to account for inefficiencies and unstated costs, that gives you less than 200 €/article in costs. Of course it's just an example for their case.

Some other publishers (typically public research entities or consortia) are transparent enough that we know their costs to provide certain services. See for instance:

• main fixed and variable costs and costs for a marketing campaign in Open Library of Humanities (OLH), UK;
• costs to implement various features in 11 publishers, like OpenAIRE OAI harvesting, ORCID integration, HTML-JATS-XML, article-level metadata ingested in DOAJ, funder information in metadata.
• Some additional numbers from blog.joss.theoj.org/2019/06/… –  Nemo Commented Jun 4, 2019 at 16:07

"The Cost of Publishing an Electronic Journal" is an old article, but it is still worth a read.

In short: with 5 papers per issue, the cost per paper is around 1000$, for a law journal.

By comment: the price is probably lower for fields where authors are using latex or similar text processing tools.

• 3 Can you include more of the relevant information from the article, such as the cost breakdown? –  HDE 226868 Commented Aug 6, 2015 at 14:34
• 2 Adjusting for inflation, that's 1500 USD today. The paper considers 2 to 5 articles per issue typical -- different from most other disciplines. –  henning no longer feeds AI Commented May 3, 2018 at 7:24
• 1 Why does the number of papers per issue make any difference to electronic journals? (for that matter, what does "issue" even mean...) –  Flyto Commented Aug 28, 2018 at 14:43

Most of these answers deal with small jounrals. Most "glam" journals are much more tight-lipped about where all your money goes.

However, eLife (which aims to be glam publication) has had a go at this here and here .

They divide their costs into "technology and innovation" (22%) and "publishing costs" (78%). They further divide "publishing costs" into fixed and marginal (i.e. per article), and claim that per-article costs are £1,798. They claim that their APC covers only the per-article part of their costs, with the rest coming from the institutional funders (Wellcome Trust, Howard Hughes, Max Planck).

Of this about they say about 50% goes on paying editors. eLife is unusual in that not only do they pay their full time editorial staff, but they also pay 39 senior academic editors and 300 reviewing editors for their time (or actually I suspect they buy that time off their employers). This is about 18hrs per article of a professor level editors time I reckon. Seems generous even if that's 1 hour of a full time editor, 2 hours of a senior academic editor and 15hrs of a reviewing editor.

Then there is "Staff and outsourcing" being non-editorial staff "involved in handling submissions and published articles, and outsourced service providers" at about £350. If they publish 1,400 articles a year, I reckon this works out at about 10 full time staff on a postdoc type salary.

Finally there is "online platforms" and "fee collection and waivers". Each at just over £300.

These numbers are all approximate because I'm putting together stuff from two different articles, dealing with two different years and in some cases estimating from graphs.

Schloss Dagstuhl Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik publishes several open-access computer science conference proceedings, mostly through their LIPIcs imprint. LIPIcs charges a publication fee of 60 (sixty) EUR per published paper , all of which is used to defray Dagstuhl's direct costs. (Other Dagstuhl imprints charge similar publication fees.)

By far the most significant cost is the human labor of copy-editing and assembling complete proceedings. ( Most of the actual typesetting is done by authors using Dagstuhl's latex templates; however, Dagstuhl staff do edit each paper to enforce their strict formatting guidelines. Similarly, the work of assembling proceedings is split between Dagstuhl and the conference organization.) Smaller costs include DOI acquisition, metadata extraction/maintenance, archiving, and server maintenance. Dagstuhl's publications are also permanently archived by the German National Library.

In reference to @Allure's rather dismissive answer, Dagstuhl does not publish anything on paper; they do significant marketing (compared to competing conference publishers like ACM, IEEE, or Springer); they "attend conferences" only in the sense that its scientific members are themselves active researchers; they use their own document management system (which was developed over many years with the support of European research grants); they do not do plagiarism checks (in part because program committees and reviewers already do that themselves); and they leave the actual content of proceedings (but not the formatting) entirely up to the conference organization. As usual in computer science, all substantive editorial work is done by volunteers.

Notably, LIPIcs does not charge their small publication fee to authors , but rather to conferences , where they are typically covered by registration fees. Conferences have to apply to publish their proceedings through LIPIcs, and their acceptance is decided by the volunteer editorial board , based primarily on the likely quality, impact, and longevity of the conference.

Dagstuhl's primary activity of hosting research workshops (again, largely organized by volunteers) makes significant/expensive marketing unnecessary. Dagstuhl doesn't have to advertise to the research community, because the research community already comes to them.

When LIPIcs was established, these publication costs were heavily subsidised by Dagstuhl's general fund, which primarily comes from the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research. In 2015, Dagstuhl was informed by their primary funding agency that their general fund could no longer be used to support publishing activities , because EU regulations forbid government interference in the private publishing market. So I believe the 60EUR fee is an accurate reflection of Dagstuhl's actual per-paper publication costs.

• 2 This could very well be accurate, but for conference proceedings only. I never dealt with CS proceedings, but in physics, they were really easy to handle because the papers just came to me and I didn't need to do anything other than produce them. In fact management actively encouraged us not to spend time on them because 1) tight deadline and 2) sales are going to be poor anyway. When you write "they "attend conferences" only in the sense that its scientific members are themselves active researchers" that's a sign that the publisher's staff aren't attending, as well. –  Allure Commented Jun 23, 2019 at 21:09
• 1 Again, you're being unnecessarily dismissive. In computer science, conference proceedings are far more important than (dare I say "mere"?) journal articles. In particular, papers at strong conferences are reviewed by multiple peers, sometimes more strictly than journal articles. ACM (the Association for Computing Machinery, the primary professional society for computer science) makes a majority of its publication income from proceedings. –  JeffE Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 0:46
• 2 I don't see how this is being unnecessarily dismissive. We're looking at this from the eyes of the publisher's costs, in which case the details of the peer review process aren't really relevant. The point is that when you handle a proceedings, you don't have to do anything except produce the book (you don't even have to market it, because the contract typically includes a bulk purchase). With journals this isn't the case - unless you are a top journal, you have to market the journal to keep getting new submissions, you have to pay for the EMS, etc. –  Allure Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 1:15
• 1 In the same way the cost to produce an individual article in a review volume isn't the same as the cost to produce an individual article in a journal (at least this is the case for physics). Review volume articles tend to be more expensive than proceedings, because they take more effort. Regardless of how much time the publisher spends on proceedings for example, they're still not going to sell more than a handful of copies outside of the bulk purchase, but that's not the case for review volumes (which typically don't have a bulk purchase either). –  Allure Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 1:17
• 1 Finally if the publisher's staff attend conferences, they'd usually do things like set up booths, talk to authors/reviewers/editorial board members, acquire new projects, and so on. Example from Springer attending the American Physical Society meeting: blogs.springeropen.com/springeropen/2018/02/28/… –  Allure Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 1:19

In June 2019, the editorial team at the Journal of Open Source Software calculated that their total costs were just $2.75 per published article. However, they acknowledged that they'd got certain services, and certain items of fixed capital for free, for which most journals have to pay. They went on to construct an estimate of what their total costs would be if they had to pay the typical rate for those items, and came up with $140 per published article.

As one might expect, the price of publishing depends on how good a job the publisher wants to do.

The absolute minimum is around a few tens of dollars. This means the publisher passes copyediting and typesetting to the author, they don't do marketing, they don't attend conferences, they use Open Journal Systems (a free editorial management system that's rather less powerful and difficult to use compared to commercial ones), they don't do plagiarism checks, they leave running the journal entirely up to the editorial board, and so on. By "leave running the journal entirely up to the editorial board", I mean that they passively wait for instructions from the board and don't do anything on their own initiative. If you see a journal whose website looks like it hasn't been updated in years, that's an example. The publisher's staff-to-journal ratio is very low (or they simply don't have as motivated/confident/educated journal staff).

Including all of the above, the minimum increases to ~$500, still with wide uncertainties because a lot depends on human costs. If a publisher is based in a country like India for example, they can have significantly lower production costs than if they're based in the UK. The UK publisher can still outsource production to India, but they also have to pay their employees in the UK which is usually significantly more expensive than if they had been located in India. Acquisition costs is another big question mark, since again it depends on how good a job you want to do. Having PhD scientists as editorial staff (e.g. Physical Review Letters ) makes things a lot more expensive.

I can't easily provide a source for this since it's based on my experience working in publishing. Still, you can get an indirect indication from article processing charges in open access journals. The absolute lowest non-zero APCs are a few tens of dollars (mostly coming from predatory OA publishers). Among non-predatory publishers the lowest APCs are a few hundred dollars. Ubiquity Press is such a publisher. When I visited them a few years ago they seemed to be taking the middle road, doing all the basic stuff but not doing the more expensive top end.

Note this excludes journals with $0 APCs. Journals that charge nothing generally have external funding. Depending on how much funding that is, they might be able to perform any or all of the activities described above.

• Less powerful than which commercial software exactly? –  Nemo Commented May 3, 2018 at 6:22
• 7 "Leave running the journal entirely up to the editorial board" is a feature, not a bug. –  Nemo Commented May 3, 2018 at 6:27
• 2 Also, I agree on the first line. But for the rest you should at least check that it cannot be easily proven false. Publishers of APC-free open access journals exist, which also take care of marketing etc. The cost is often known. See for instance Open Library of Humanities (OLH): blogs.openaire.eu/?p=2940 –  Nemo Commented May 3, 2018 at 6:27
• @Nemo such as Editorial Manager, which is more powerful than OJS (last I checked). Leaving a journal entirely to the editorial board is in my opinion a bad thing. Of course the publisher does not interfere directly with peer review, but there's also things like choosing which articles to feature on the journal's website, writing editorials, and find topics on for invited reviews. One can leave all these to the editorial board (and risk the editorial board doing nothing) or actively move them along. –  Allure Commented May 3, 2018 at 6:49
• 1 +1 If you see a journal whose website looks like it hasn't been updated in years –  GEdgar Commented Nov 4, 2018 at 13:43

I'm adding another answer because it's fundamentally different from the one I wrote above. All numbers sourced from this article . Note it dates from 2013; the absolute numbers are likely to have changed since.

tl; dr: it is a complex question. Here are some of the most relevant quotes.

First paragraph:

Data from the consulting firm Outsell in Burlingame, California, suggest that the science-publishing industry generated $9.4 billion in revenue in 2011 and published around 1.8 million English-language articles — an average revenue per article of roughly $5,000. Analysts estimate profit margins at 20–30% for the industry, so the average cost to the publisher of producing an article is likely to be around $3,500–4,000.

Second paragraph:

Neither PLoS nor BioMed Central [Ed: these were the largest OA publishers at the time the article was written] would discuss actual costs (although both organizations are profitable as a whole), but some emerging players who did reveal them for this article say that their real internal costs are extremely low. Paul Peters, president of the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association and chief strategy officer at the open-access publisher Hindawi in Cairo, says that last year, his group published 22,000 articles at a cost of $290 per article. Brian Hole, founder and director of the researcher-led Ubiquity Press in London, says that average costs are £200 (US$300). And Binfield says that PeerJ's costs are in the “low hundreds of dollars” per article.

Third paragraph:

The few numbers that are available show that costs vary widely in this sector, too. For example, Diane Sullenberger, executive editor for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC, says that the journal would need to charge about $3,700 per paper to cover costs if it went open-access. But Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature , estimates his journal's internal costs at £20,000–30,000 ($30,000–40,000) per paper. Many publishers say they cannot estimate what their per-paper costs are because article publishing is entangled with other activities. ( Science , for example, says that it cannot break down its per-paper costs; and that subscriptions also pay for activities of the journal's society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC.)

The article gives some details as to why the numbers are so different (two orders of magnitude between Hindawi/Ubiquity and Nature), but that's beyond the scope of the question. For the interested, I suggest reading the article.

SciPost publishes several entirely free journals (free for authors and readers) in the sciences and mathematics with open refereeing. (See also this question .) In their own words, the business model is

We don't charge authors, we don't charge readers, we don't send bills to anybody for our services, and we certainly don't make any profit; we are an academic community service surviving on donations coming primarily from Organizations which benefit from our activities.

They also take an entirely transparent approach, and provide statistics about the average publication expenditure per article . The current expenditure per publication in their largest journal (SciPost Physics) is currently around €600-€640 (up from €440 in 2019).

They don't quite provide the breakdown of what that expenditure entails. But, as can be seen from e.g. the 2018 Annual Report , the main operation costs are salaries paying for editorial administration (supervising refereeing and production processes) and the production of paper proofs.

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Understanding Submission and Publication Fees

• Research Process
• Peer Review

A number of journals charge fees to authors of one kind or another. Pre-publication fees, such as a submission fee or membership fee, are less common. Researchers are more likely to encounter post-publications fees, such as an article processing charge or page fee.

Updated on January 1, 2012

When trying to target the right journal for publication of your manuscript, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the diversity of not only journals but also potential author fees. What are all of these types of fees? Which types of journals generally charge them? When? Why?

Before addressing this slew of questions, it is important to note a common oversimplification: that traditional journals are solely based on a reader-pays model, in which institutional libraries typically pay for access to content, and that open access journals, supporting " unrestricted access and unrestricted reuse ,” are always based on an author-pays model (see our article on open access myths for more information). In other words, as an author, you may have to pay for submission to and/or publication in a subscription-based journal and may not have to do so for an open access one. The latter concept is made possible by alternative sources of revenue that cover the costs of the editorial, peer review, and publication processes, such as paywalled premium content, advertising, or subsidy by a journal's affiliated foundation or society.

Note also that for both traditional and open access publications that do entail so-called “author” charges, you may not have to pay these fees in full because of discounts related to institutional membership programs, your own society membership, or waivers of service (such as if in-house copyediting is not needed). Moreover, you may not have to pay full or even discounted fees due to waivers based on either financial hardship or your country of origin's economic status or due to coverage by your institution, department, or funder/grant; in fact, for open access publication, only 5% to 12% of fees are ever paid using personal funds.

Here, we summarize a few of the most common fees associated with manuscript submission and publication, with a focus on the pre- and post-acceptance charges that may be most relevant to you as an author. Note that all quoted price ranges are rough estimates based on a brief survey, so please check specific journals' and publishers' websites for more accurate information. These sites (e.g., PLOS and BioMed Central ) should provide up-to-date information on journals' specific fee types, discounts, and waivers. Your institution and/or funder may also be able to provide more in-depth explanations about open access mandates, if any, and cost coverage.

Pre-acceptance fees

Submission fees. Both subscription-based and open access journals may charge a fee (typically $50-125) at the time of manuscript submission to help to fund editorial and peer review administration. From an author's standpoint, these fees might deter submission due to the existence of many journals without such charges. However, submission fees thus present the advantage of decreasing competition for review and acceptance, potentially enhancing publication speed . The effect on journal quality, and therefore potentially on impact, may also be positive: the quality of submissions may increase, as only authors with confidence that they are choosing the right journal will be willing to pay a submission fee. Interestingly, it has also been posited that submission fees can increase authors' concern about the quality of peer review and the reasoning behind manuscript rejection, potentially motivating greater accountability on the part of journals.

Membership fees. The open access journal PeerJ is unique in charging a one-time membership fee ($100-350) that covers the editorial process and peer review, as well as the possible publication, of one, two, or a limitless number of manuscripts per year (depending on the level of membership). Each author on a manuscript, up to 12 authors, must pay the fee and a must contribute to the PeerJ community yearly, such as by participating in peer review. It is also possible to pay for membership after acceptance of a manuscript, but this increases the cost. Advantages of this membership approach include relatively rapid publication and avoidance of repeatedly paying pre- and post-acceptance fees. [Editor's note: PeerJ now offers a per-article price , as well.]

Post-acceptance fees

These fees either stand alone or are charged subsequent to a submission fee.

Page/color printing charges. To cover the cost of printing, and particularly color printing, certain traditional journals charge per page (often $100-250 each) and/or per color figure (about $150-1,000 each). In rare cases, supplementary materials may also incur a flat charge or a charge per item or page, with fees usually ranging from $150-500.

Publication fees. These fees, charged by certain open access journals post-acceptance, are also known as author publishing charges or article processing charges (APCs) and range from $8-3,900. APCs may be driven down by submission fees, particularly among open access journals with high rejection rates. In contrast to post-acceptance charges by traditional journals, these APCs are more often flat fees because they primarily fund peer review and online dissemination, which are length independent. In rare cases, post-acceptance, page/color-independent fees may also be billed by traditional journals (e.g., the Journal of Clinical Investigation ) without unrestricted access and/or reuse provisions. Generally, these fees provide both retrospective and prospective coverage, including of peer review management by the editorial staff or board (i.e., identifying and following up with peer reviewers), manuscript preparation (e.g., copyediting), journal production (e.g., layout), open access online publication and hosting, indexing (e.g., in PubMed), and archiving.

Be aware that “predatory” journals may take advantage of the APC-based model to receive payment in return for minimal peer review and processing, so be sure to look for warning signs and consider checking whether your target journal is listed by the Directory of Open Access Journals . A truly open access journal should also meet the two-fold requirement defined above by PLOS : “unrestricted access and unrestricted reuse,” meaning that an open access article must not only be freely accessible to readers but also freely available for copying, distribution, and derivative work, as long as the original author is acknowledged. In particular, open access articles are often associated with a CC-BY license, although certain journals may not support reuse/derivation.

Regarding the value added by submitting to APC-charging journals, a weak correlation between citation-based impact and APCs has been found for open access journals, implying that higher fees are necessitated by higher rejection rates, which in turn imply greater selectivity and prestige. However, note that this analysis did not take submission fees into account.

Conclusions

In sum, when choosing a journal for manuscript submission, the array of pre- and post-acceptance fees should not be an immediate deterrent, especially if the journal's scope and content are a good fit for your work, because of both potential fee assistance and added value. You should thus focus on asking yourself a more personalized question beyond what, who, when, and why: is the journal truly the right fit for my specific research and my own publication goals?

Michaela Panter, PhD

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How Much Does It Cost to Publish a Research Paper?

• September 11, 2023

Are you worried about how much does it costs to publish a research paper? It is the most important factor to consider when looking for publication services. The significance of publishing research can’t be overstated. However, research publishing includes multiple factors essential for researchers to understand.

In this article, we will help you understand the expenses of research paper publication and the possibility of a paper being rejected after acceptance.

The cost of publishing a research paper can vary depending on multiple factors, including the journal chosen and any optional services selected.

Article Processing Charges (APCs)

Many journals demand that authors pay APCs to cover the research publication costs. These charges may range from a hundred to thousands of dollars per paper. The amount often depends on the journal’s reputation, impact factor, and the level of service provided.

Submission Fees

Some high-indexed journals also charge article submission fees from authors for manuscript review. These fees help cover the cost of the peer-review process. The submission fees generally range from a hundred dollars.

Page Charges

Besides APCs, some journals may require authors to pay page charges, particularly for printed paper copies. These charges vary based on the number of pages in the final publication.

Color and Supplementary Material Fees

You may incur additional charges if your paper includes color figures, tables, or supplementary materials. These fees can add up, so being aware of them is essential.

Optional Services

Suppose you are finding out how much it costs to publish a research paper. In that case, it is pertinent to mention that many publishers offer optional services such as expedited review, open access options, and professional editing services with additional costs.

Membership Fees

Membership cost also affects the overall charges of research publication. Because, in some cases, authors may need to become members of a professional organization or society to submit their work to specific journals or conferences. Membership fees can be annual or one-time payments.

Reprints and Offprints

Researchers often order reprints or offprints of their published papers for distribution. These costs can vary based on the number of copies required.

Is It Worth It to Pay for Paper Publication?

This is the primary concern of almost every researcher, “Is it worth it to pay for research paper publication?” Yes, if you want to pursue your career in academics. Here are a few aspects that must be considered while publishing research.

Also Read: How Much Does Dissertation Proofreading Cost?

Journal Reputation and Impact Factor

Journals with high-impact factors mostly charge higher APCs but offer increased visibility. If your research aims to reach a vast audience and gain recognition globally, paying a considerable amount to a reputable journal may be worthwhile.

Funding Availability

Some funding agencies and institutions provide grants or support for publication fees. In such cases, it makes sense to use these resources to publish in reputable journals.

Open Access vs. Subscription Journals

Open-access journals make research freely accessible to everyone but tend to have higher APCs. Subscription-based journals may have lower fees but restrict access to those without subscriptions. Consider the accessibility and reach of your research when choosing between these options.

Career Goals

Early-career researchers may benefit from publishing in well-established journals to build their reputation. As researchers progress in their careers, they may prioritize open-access journals to maximize the dissemination of their work.

Reviewer and Editorial Services

Some journals offer professional editing and reviewer services, which can improve your paper’s quality and chances of acceptance. These services may justify the higher research publication costs.

Can a Paper Be Rejected After Acceptance?

Surprisingly, yes, a paper can be rejected after acceptance, although it is relatively rare. Here are some scenarios in which this might occur.

Ethical Concerns

If ethical issues in the research come to light after acceptance, the paper may be rejected. The ethical concern includes plagiarism, data fabrication, and other unethical practices.

Quality Issues

Mostly, papers are accepted based on initial reviews, but further examination by the editorial team may reveal significant flaws that cannot be corrected. This is also the reason for research paper rejection after acceptance.

Overlapping Content

A journal may revoke acceptance of a paper if it is discovered to overlap with previously published work substantially.

Failure to Meet Requirements

Journals often have specific formatting requirements. If authors fail to meet these requirements in the final submission, it may result in paper rejection after acceptance.

Author Misconduct

Instances of author misconduct, such as inappropriate authorship attribution or undisclosed conflicts of interest, can lead to post-acceptance rejection.

The Bottom Line

Hopefully, you got the answer to your questions, “How much does it cost to publish a research paper ?” and Can a paper be rejected after acceptance?

It is pertinent to mention that research paper publishing includes various costs such as APCs, submission fees, and optional service charges. Whether it’s worth paying for publication depends on your research goals, available funding, and the journal’s reputation. While it is rare that papers can be rejected after acceptance, it is necessary for researchers to carefully consider the guidelines of the journal and other potential factors to avoid rejection.

The Research Whisperer

Just like the thesis whisperer – but with more money, how to make a simple research budget.

Every research project needs a budget*.

If you are applying for funding, you must say what you are planning to spend that funding on. More than that, you need to show how spending that money will help you to answer your research question .

So, developing the budget is the perfect time to plan your project clearly . A good budget shows the assessors that you have thought about your research in detail and, if it is done well, it can serve as a great, convincing overview of the project.

Here are five steps to create a simple budget for your research project.

1. List your activities

Make a list of everything that you plan to do in the project, and who is going to do it.

Take your methodology and turn it into a step-by-step plan. Have you said that you will interview 50 people? Write it on your list.

Are you performing statistical analysis on your sample?  Write it down.

Think through the implications of what you are going to do. Do you need to use a Thingatron? Note down that you will need to buy it, install it, and commission it.

What about travel? Write down each trip separately. Be specific. You can’t just go to ‘South East Asia’ to do fieldwork. You need to go to Kuala Lumpur to interview X number of people over Y weeks, then the same again for Singapore and Jakarta.

Your budget list might look like this:

• I’m going to do 10 interviews in Kuala Lumpur; 10 interviews in Singapore; 10 interviews in Jakarta by me.
• I’ll need teaching release for three months for fieldwork.
• I’ll need Flights to KL, Singapore, Jakarta and back to Melbourne.
• I’ll need Accommodation for a month in each place, plus per diem.
• The transcription service will transcribe the 30 interviews.
• I’ll analysis the transcribed results. (No teaching release required – I’ll do it in my meagre research time allowance.)
• I’ll need a Thingatron X32C to do the trials.
• Thing Inc will need to install the Thingatron. (I wonder how long that will take.)
• The research assistant will do three trials a month with the Thingatron.
• I’ll need to hire a research assistant (1 day per week for a year at Level B1.)
• The research assistant will do the statistical analysis of the Thingatron results.
• I’ll do the writing up in my research allowance time.

By the end, you should feel like you have thought through the entire project in detail. You should be able to walk someone else through the project, so grab a critical friend and read the list to them. If they ask questions, write down the answers.

This will help you to get to the level of specificity you need for the next step.

2. Check the rules again

You’ve already read the funding rules, right? If not, go and read them now – I’ll wait right here until you get back.

Once you’ve listed everything you want to do, go back and read the specific rules for budgets again. What is and isn’t allowed? The funding scheme won’t pay for equipment – you’ll need to fund your Thingatron from somewhere else. Cross it off.

Some schemes won’t fund people. Others won’t fund travel. It is important to know what you need for your project. It is just as important to know what you can include in the application that you are writing right now.

Most funding schemes won’t fund infrastructure (like building costs) and other things that aren’t directly related to the project. Some will, though. If they do, you should include overheads (i.e. the general costs that your organisation needs to keep running). This includes the cost of basics like power and lighting; desks and chairs; and cleaners and security staff. It also includes service areas like the university library. Ask your finance officer for help with this. Often, it is a percentage of the overall cost of the project.

If you are hiring people, don’t forget to use the right salary rate and include salary on-costs. These are the extra costs that an organisation has to pay for an employee, but that doesn’t appear in their pay check. This might include things like superannuation, leave loading, insurance, and payroll tax. Once again, your finance officer can help with this.

Your budget list might now look like this:

• 10 interviews in Kuala Lumpur; 10 interviews in Singapore; 10 interviews in Jakarta by me.
• Teaching release for three months for fieldwork.
• Flights to KL, Singapore, Jakarta and back to Melbourne.
• Accommodation for a month in each place, plus per diem, plus travel insurance (rule 3F).
• Transcription of 30 interviews, by the transcription service.
• Analysis of transcribed results, by me. No teaching release required.
• Purchase and install Thingatron X32C, by Thing Inc . Not allowed by rule 3C . Organise access to Thingatron via partner organistion – this is an in-kind contribution to the project.
• Three trials a month with Thingatron, by research assistant.
• Statistical analysis of Thingatron results, by research assistant.
• Research assistant: 1 day per week for a year at Level B1, plus 25.91% salary on-costs.
• Overheads at 125% of total cash request, as per rule 3H.

3. Cost each item

For each item on your list, find a reasonable cost for it . Are you going to interview the fifty people and do the statistical analysis yourself? If so, do you need time release from teaching? How much time? What is your salary for that period of time, or how much will it cost to hire a replacement? Don’t forget any hidden costs, like salary on-costs.

If you aren’t going to do the work yourself, work out how long you need a research assistant for. Be realistic. Work out what level you want to employ them at, and find out how much that costs.

How much is your Thingatron going to cost? Sometimes, you can just look that stuff up on the web. Other times, you’ll need to ring a supplier, particularly if there are delivery and installation costs.

Jump on a travel website and find reasonable costs for travel to Kuala Lumpur and the other places. Find accommodation costs for the period that you are planning to stay, and work out living expenses. Your university, or your government, may have per diem rates for travel like this.

Make a note of where you got each of your estimates from. This will be handy later, when you write the budget justification.

• 10 interviews in Kuala Lumpur; 10 interviews in Singapore; 10 interviews in Jakarta by me (see below for travel costs).
• Teaching release for three months for fieldwork = $25,342 – advice from finance officer.
• Flights to KL ($775), Singapore ($564), Jakarta ($726), Melbourne ($535) – Blue Sky airlines, return economy.
• Accommodation for a month in each place (KL: $3,500; Sing: $4,245; Jak: $2,750 – long stay, three star accommodation as per TripAdviser).
• Per diem for three months (60 days x $125 per day – University travel rules).
• Travel insurance (rule 3F): $145 – University travel insurance calculator .
• Transcription of 30 interviews, by the transcription service: 30 interviews x 60 minutes per interview x $2.75 per minute – Quote from transcription service, accented voices rate.
• Analysis of transcribed results, by me. No teaching release required. (In-kind contribution of university worth $2,112 for one week of my time – advice from finance officer ).
• Purchase and install Thingatron X32C, by Thing Inc . Not allowed by rule 3C. Organise access to Thingatron via partner organistion – this is an in-kind contribution to the project. ($2,435 in-kind – quote from partner organisation, at ‘favoured client’ rate.)
• Research assistant: 1 day per week for a year at Level B1, plus 25.91% salary on-costs. $12,456 – advice from finance officer.

Things are getting messy, but the next step will tidy it up.

4. Put it in a spreadsheet

Some people work naturally in spreadsheets (like Excel). Others don’t. If you don’t like Excel, tough. You are going to be doing research budgets for the rest of your research life.

When you are working with budgets, a spreadsheet is the right tool for the job, so learn to use it! Learn enough to construct a simple budget – adding things up and multiplying things together will get you through most of it. Go and do a course if you have to.

For a start, your spreadsheet will multiply things like 7 days in Kuala Lumpur at $89.52 per day, and it will also add up all of your sub-totals for you.

If your budget doesn’t add up properly (because, for example, you constructed it as a table in Word), two things will happen. First, you will look foolish. Secondly, and more importantly, people will lose confidence in all your other numbers, too. If your total is wrong, they will start to question the validity of the rest of your budget. You don’t want that.

If you are shy of maths, then Excel is your friend. It will do most of the heavy lifting for you.

For this exercise, the trick is to put each number on a new line. Here is how it might look.

5. Justify it

Accompanying every budget is a budget justification. For each item in your budget, you need to answer two questions:

• Why do you need this money?
• Where did you get your figures from?

The budget justification links your budget to your project plan and back again. Everything item in your budget should be listed in your budget justification, so take the list from your budget and paste it into your budget justification.

For each item, give a short paragraph that says why you need it. Refer back to the project plan and expand on what is there. For example, if you have listed a research assistant in your application, this is a perfect opportunity to say what the research assistant will be doing.

Also, for each item, show where you got your figures from. For a research assistant, this might mean talking about the level of responsibility required, so people can understand why you chose the salary level. For a flight, it might be as easy as saying: “Blue Sky airlines economy return flight.”

Here is an example for just one aspect of the budget:

Fieldwork: Kuala Lumpur

Past experience has shown that one month allows enough time to refine and localise interview questions with research partners at University of Malaya, test interview instrument, recruit participants, conduct ten x one-hour interviews with field notes. In addition, the novel methodology will be presented at CONF2015, to be held in Malaysia in February 2015.

Melbourne – Kuala Lumpur economy airfare is based on current Blue Sky Airlines rates. Note that airfares have been kept to a minimum by travelling from country to country, rather than returning to Australia.

1 month accommodation is based on three star, long stay accommodation rates provided by TripAdvisor.

30 days per diem rate is based on standard university rates for South-East Asia.

Pro tip: Use the same nomenclature everywhere. If you list a Thingatron X32C in your budget, then call it a Thingatron X32C in your budget justification and project plan. In an ideal world, someone should be able to flip from the project plan, to the budget and to the budget justification and back again and always know exactly where they are.

• Project plan: “Doing fieldwork in Malaysia? Whereabouts?” Flips to budget.
• Budget: “A month in Kuala Lumpur – OK. Why a month?” Flips to budget justification.
• Budget justification: “Ah, the field work happens at the same time as the conference. Now I get it. So, what are they presenting at the conference?” Flips back to the project description…

So, there you have it: Make a list; check the rules; cost everything; spreadsheet it; and then justify it. Budget done. Good job, team!

This article builds on several previous articles. I have shamelessly stolen from them.

• Constructing your budget – Jonathan O’Donnell.
• What makes a winning budget ? – Jonathan O’Donnell.
• How NOT to pad your budget – Tseen Khoo.
• Conquer the budget, conquer the project – Tseen Khoo.
• Research on a shoestring – Emily Kothe.
• How to make a simple Gantt chart – Jonathan O’Donnell.

* Actually, there are some grant schemes that give you a fixed amount of money, which I think is a really great idea . However, you will still need to work out what you are going to spend the money on, so you will still need a budget at some stage, even if you don’t need it for the application.

Also in the ‘simple grant’ series:

• How to write a simple research methods section .
• How to make a simple Gantt chart .

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28 comments.

This has saved my day!

Happy to help, Malba.

Like Liked by 1 person

[…] you be putting in a bid for funding? Are there costs involved, such as travel or equipment costs? Research Whisperer’s post on research budgets may help you […]

I’ve posted a link to this article of Jonathan’s in the Australasian Research Management Society LinkedIn group as well, as I’m sure lots of other people will want to share this.

Thanks, Miriam.

This is great! Humorous way to talk explain a serious subject and could be helpful in designing budgets for outreach grants, as well. Thanks!

Thanks, Jackie

If you are interested, I have another one on how to do a timeline: https://theresearchwhisperer.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/gantt-chart/

[…] really useful information regarding budget development can be found on the Research Whisperer Blog here. Any other thoughts and suggestions are welcome – what are your tips to developing a good […]

[…] it gets you to the level of specificity that you need for a detailed methods section. Similarly, working out a budget for your workshops will force you to be specific about how many people will be attending (venue […]

A friend of mine recently commented by e-mail:

I was interested in your blog “How to make a simple research budget”, particularly the statement: “Think through the implications of what you are going to do. Do you need to use a Thingatron? Note down that you will need to buy it, install it, and commission it.”

From my limited experience so far, I’d think you could add:

“Who else is nearby who might share the costs of the Thingatron? If it’s a big capital outlay, and you’re only going to use it to 34% of it’s capacity, sharing can make the new purchase much easier to justify. But how will this fit into your grant? And then it’s got to be maintained – the little old chap who used to just do all that odd mix of electrickery and persuasion to every machine in the lab got retrenched in the last round. You can run it into the ground. But that means you won’t have a reliable, stable Thingatron all ready to run when you apply for the follow-on grant in two years.”

[…] (For more on this process, take a look at How to Write a Simple Project Budget.) […]

[…] Source: How to make a simple research budget […]

This is such a big help! Thank You!

No worries, Claudine. Happy to help.

Would you like to share the link of the article which was wrote about funding rules? I can’t find it. Many thanks!

Hello there – do you mean this post? https://theresearchwhisperer.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/reading-guidelines

Thank @tseen khoo, very useful tips. I also want to understand more about 3C 3F 3H. What do they stand for? Can you help me find out which posts talk about that. Thank again.

[…] mount up rapidly, even if you are in a remote and developing part of the world. Putting together a half decent budget early on and being aware of funding opportunities can help to avoid financial disaster half way […]

This is so amazing, it really helpful and educative. Happy unread this last week before my proposal was drafted.

Happy to help, Babayomi. Glad you liked it.

really useful! thanks kate

[…] “How to Make a Simple Research Budget,” by Jonathan O’Donnell on The Research Whisperer […]

[…] offering services that ran pretty expensive. until I found this one. It guided me through making a simple budget. The information feels sort of like a university graduate research paper but having analysed […]

[…] Advice on writing research proposals for industry […]

[…] research serves as the bedrock of informed budgeting. Explore the average costs of accommodation, transportation, meals, and activities in your chosen […]

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How much does it cost to get a scientific paper?

The Backstory :  As it stands today,when one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provides the funding for a scientific research project, and those results are published, they must be made freely available to public, within a set period of time.  The reasoning behind this requirement is that taxpayers funded everything about the research except for the final publication, and so they have already paid for access.

The Research Works Act ( #RWA ), HR 3699, is a bill in the House of Representatives that would roll back this requirement.  If it passes, taxpayers will most likely have to pay exorbitant fees for access to publicly-funded research.  I'll explain why in a moment.

The Research Works Act will harm science education because students and instructors at small colleges and community colleges generally lack access to scientific journals and we will no longer be able to afford to use scientific literature in our courses.

How much does it cost?

One commenter on a my earlier post about the effect on science education noted that students and others would still be able to purchase research articles if RWA passes.

I thought, dear readers, you might like to know what that privilege is likely to cost.

What does a personal subscription cost today?

Today, a one year personal subscription to Science costs $149 for a member and $75 for a student. A personal subscription for one year of Nature costs $199.  We subscribe to both and pay $350 a year for the privilege.

The problem is that working in science, and learning about science, requires looking at papers from multiple journals and multiple years from those journals.

Access to one journal is rarely sufficient.

Let's look at the subscription costs for some other journals.

Two other journals that I frequently use are Nature Genetics and Nature Biotechnology. These cost $225 per year and $250 per year, respectively.

Here are the yearly subscription costs for a few of the other Nature journals:

$503  Acta Pharmacologica Sinica $586  American Journal of Hypertension $319  Asian Journal of Andrology $865  Bone Marrow Transplantation $99    BoneKEy Reports $474  British Dental Journal $569  British Journal of Cancer $542  Cancer Gene Therapy $417  Cell Death and Differentiation $417  Cell Research

At $865 per year, a personal subscription to the on-line only version, of Bone Marrow Transplantation would be hard for me to justify.  But then, I'm not an M.D.

Now, consider Nature has 91 publications, with many subscription costs over $300 per year for each journal. I've been told that library subscriptions are more costly than personal subscriptions.  Is it really that surprising that our libraries say no?

What do individual articles cost?

Could we get by with having students read individual articles?

I looked up the prices for individual articles from some of the journals that I use.

The table below shows the costs to purchase a single article from 14 different journals.

Out the 14 journals, 9 of them charge $30 per article or more. I looked at multiple Nature journals since the prices for each journal subscription varied so widely.

Many times when we have students research a topic, we want them to look at multiple articles from multiple journals. Students might need to look at ten papers to complete an assignment.

We also tend to have students investigate different topics.  This means that we can't just give every student the same set of articles.  Each student needs to get multiple articles from multiple sources, and each article could cost $30-35 at today's prices.  Today, we can make do by having students stick to open access articles. RWA will kill that option.

If papers were priced more reasonably, like songs in iTunes, we instructors would find RWA less alarming.  But as it stands, if publishers charge the all articles with the prices they're using now, it will kill our ability to use the literature in the classroom.

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H.r. 3699 threatens free publications, raising the barriers: restricting access to scientific literature will hurt stem education, plos one and why i believe in open access, why open access.

You forgot to include the pricing for articles from PLoS and BMC publishing!!! $0 :)

PLoS is a bit different since authors pay for publication. I'm not sure how BMC works.

I left them out since the business models are so different.

Worse, the journals don't actually provide the content OR the proofing - all the experts are external, making the high costs bloody shocking. In the average paper I write, I cite ~ 25 publications, with a median cost of about $32 dollars. Luckily the university pay the charges, otherwise it would cost me approximately ~$800 per paper, which I give to them for free (as do all scientists) and will cost others about $32 to access!

I have just obtained a PhD and am now technically graduated and yet have a good number of papers to write. I am lucky the university I went to are kind enough to allow me to access papers I need, otherwise I simply could never afford to write my own papers!

There is something fundamentally wrong with this set up isn't there? George Monbiot and Ben Goldacre have written about this in the UK..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/02/bad-science-academi…

I wrote my Congressman (John Lewis) making the same point. Everyone who cares about this should write to his or her Congressperson.

First of all, I must clarify some points made by Sandra in the original post. The NIH embargo period is 12 months. That means, any research funded in whole or even in part by the NIH after the 12 months must be made available for free. Within the 12 months, when fresh research is desired most, the user must pay for the article. OA advocates want to decrease the embargo to 0 months (free right away - they have introduced a bill over the past few years that would do this), while the RWA would abolish of the requirement to make any publication free after any certain period of time.

There, we have the ground rules.

That said, I still would like to know the percentage of student's or faculty that are paying the above mentioned rates. To my knowledge, access to journals is not a problem for the preponderance of folks in academia. Their institutions pay for access, and band together to use economies of scale to negotiate lower prices. See: California university system vs. Nature.

Community college should do the same. If there are specialty journals that you wish to subscribe to, by all means, please do.

I still don't understand the desire to ask taxpayers to fund your access to journals that were not created out of thin air. I fully concede the above commenter's points about the volunteer system that reduces costs, but since even non-profit publishers charge a fee, that should be a clear sign that profit is not superfluous. Any publicly traded entity has a 10-k on file to view their costs - I suggest you take a look at that. There is a real cost to produce journals. So the question is, who shall pay?

I would offer that the two models (author pays and user pays) are the two competing models. In one, the user pays for access to something that he or she desires. This community is very very small, very educated, and typically quite affluent. In an author pays model, it is the taxpayer that pays for the cost of the journal publication. It should really be called the taxpayer pays model. In that model, a grantee earmarks a couple of thousand dollars, money that could be used for research, and pays to create the article. The costs don't go down: if a large publisher had a profit margin of 5% last year, which is about average, your table again would still be too high for your liking I suppose. After all, ACS is the highest per article and they are a non-profit entity.

So as it appears that since the cost of publications are real and must be paid in order to ensure the veracity of science, who shall pay? I would say that the small, highly educated, affluent community should pay for access to their very specialized and technical journals, while the researchers should be able to use every last scarce penny towards conducting actual research on behalf of their taxpayer investors.

The gross price gouging of the journals is a big complaint of mine even just as a regular citizen. For example I was recently prescribed an SSRI and wanted to double check if there was any possibility of long term, irreversible harm. The doctor had told me know. I happen to know that doctors hand drugs out like candy these days and that there *is* actually a lot of de facto corruption and bias inserted by drug companies among the regular rank and file doctors. I was skeptical, even that I should really be being prescribed anything as I don't even agree that I am depressed - I went to the doctor for a problem related to bone deformation and walked away with a prescription for antidepressants (and dick all progress on the actual problem I went about)!

So I looked some stuff up on google scholar. Turns out that there IS a very substantial chance of permanent brain damage, in the several percent range at least and there isn't much research - just enough to know that the reassurances the drug companies had been giving everyone that it was oh-so rare were complete bullshit. Oh, and the papers explicitly stated that the vast majority of doctors are unaware of the fact, and are probably overprescribing as a result.

I am on an extremely small income (11 k per year) and had to pay more than 70 bucks just for 2 articles, plus if I had bought all the ones I wanted to see, it would have been way more obviously. It's the same problems as the banksters; the publishers just aren't doing any real work, they just get rich by abusing certain social norms etc.

It's sad in an open access discussion, one in which I was spoken for in the original post, I have my posts rejected here. Truly sad.

Dear Just saying: you're jumping to conclusions about being blocked. I don't have much control over the spam filter. Sometimes comments get blocked that shouldn't be blocked. I don't check the comments regularly and I often don't know this has happened.

To address some of your points, you state that:

"In an author pays model, it is the taxpayer that pays for the cost of the journal publication."

This is correct. This is also true in the "user pays model." You just don't see the money trail as clearly.

In one case, grant money directly pays for access to journals and papers. I've used grant money to purchase access to a few of those $30 papers. In the other case, grant money goes to help libraries pay for subscriptions through a budget item called "indirect costs." At some Universities, these costs are almost equal to the $ amount requested for research.

It sounds you're not very familiar with higher education or high school for that matter, either. There are lots of college instructor and high school instructors, too, who use these resources.

You probably realize this, but small companies and non-profits need access to journal articles, too. These companies are not affluent, and are also challenged by the high cost of individual papers. The Research Works Act will hurt small businesses and non-profits, too, not just education.

My last comment went to the spam filter, too. Apparently if comments are long the spam filter blocks them no matter where they originate.

As to some more of your points:

1. I agree that publishers should be able to earn a profit. I don't agree that the profit should be so large. Imagine if we have something like iTunes where we could pay a fair amount for each article and get them easily.

I disagree with the assertion that a large fraction of the people with an interest in reading original literature are affluent enough to pay $30 per paper.

2. You asked about the percentage of faculty or students who are paying the rates I cited. I say that those prices effectively prevent faculty and students from using newly published materials and the articles in certain groups of journals. The RWA would expand this problem even further.

3. You seem to think that researchers don't use grant money to access scientific literature. This is an incorrect assumption for the reasons I gave above.

Actually I'm quite familiar with how research is funded and how universities administer their funding. You say that taxpayer money pays the bills in a user fee model as well. While this may be true in some part (indirects don't cover an entire library's costs, other sources contribute), you may have noticed that in my arguments I'm keen to use the word efficient. It's signifies that the user fee model makes the best use of scarce resources. Why? Because each grantee pays directly with his or her own funds. You discriminate wisely what you need and what you don't. There's extremely little waste. If journals were free to you, how many more would you "subscribe" to? 5? 10? How do you think the cost of publishing would explode when their demand increases 5 or 10 fold? The author pays model is actually a pure giveaway to publishers. In a few years, it won't be a $3000 fee for the author. It'll be $5000, or $7000 just to print more journals that sit on bookshelves. In the end, tens of millions of dollars are shifted out of desperatly thin research budgets to pay for an enormous and artificial demand premium for journals.

And you claim that high school folks need access to free journal content from some of the above mentioned journals? I would love to see the numbers. And having worked at a small biotech startup, I can tell you access was not an issue, we paid for the few articles we needed. And non-profits? Many non-profits are the same entities that are serving as the evil publishers that you vilify (ACS is your largest offender in the original post! Are you claiming they're price gouging....themselves!?) How are the harmed? If they represent patients, again, all they have to do is direct their constituency to ask the publisher for free access.

It seems you don't actually know the entire landscape, instead just choose to cherry pick individual rates (that few people actually pay) and claim them as representative of some intellectually starved scholarly community.

You still haven't addressed the point about why a private product, even if based on publicly funded research, should be free. Be sure to quote the Bayh-Dole Act while you're at it. I'm interested to see how you remedy the two.

You must have missed what I wrote.

I did not write that articles should be free. I did write that the current prices are unreasonably high.

I am concerned that all articles will be priced at $30 an article if RWA passes.

Were the journals to charge prices like $2-3 an article, we could, in good conscience, use them in student assignments. When they charge exorbitant prices like $30 an article, we cannot.

As to non-profits, if you look at the table, in general, the non-profits (ASM, AAAS, FASEB, and NAS) do charge less for their articles. ACS (the American Chemical Society) is an exception.

Sandra - why do you think articles can cost $3? If a publisher could, don't you think non-profits, who sell subscriptions to their own members, would meet this price point? Or don't you think another publisher would enter the market?

Of course, this is a self perpetuating dilemma: the community could stop submitting to Nature, Science, Cell, etc and drive down their costs, which would drive down the cost to subscribers. But everyone still submits to these choice few.

I started to write my explanation, but it looks like this will take another blog post. Look for more tomorrow.

@Just Saying:

"having worked at a small biotech startup, I can tell you access was not an issue, we paid for the few articles we needed."

Huh. Traditionally folks at small biotechs piggy back on university subscriptions - some of the folks there are still in universities, some have just left and still have a login, others still have friends there that give them access or pdfs. One thing I haven't seen is biotechs doing lots of R&D that only need a "few articles".

Your post really helped me to understand how much does it cost to get a scientific paper?. It has great details and yet it is easy to understand. That's what i was looking for. I will definitely share it with others.

Thanks for sharing.

Yes Bob, we were able to still use MIT and Harvard logins for most of our things. Only rarely did we not have access to a journal subscription. But thank you for helping to discredit Sandra's claim that most biotechs don't have access to journals.

I would love for someone to speak about the anticipated cost/demand increases that would be expected with an author pays model. It's certainly an expected economic shift. You can be sure that the open access fee charged by publishers will increase as their demand increases, until one day the research institutions will seek to put a cap on the amount that a PI can pay to publishers (putting downward pressure on the system).

I'd also like to hear folks's thought on why the non-profit publishers also are unable to meet your expectations, if big corporate publishers are to blame.

I would also like to see a rebuttal to the user-fee efficiency argument, perhaps rebutting the museum metaphor (often paid for by tax payers, but keeps operations going through a user fee system).

Also, some hard numbers on how many "individual articles" are purchased each year as a percent of total articles? How many people actually pay the prices listed above? My guess would be very few, but would love to see the data. It's a dynamic much like the individual market for health insurance - not many people actually pay those rates, but it's very hard on the ones that do. A solution (easier grouping together?) would be welcome.

These are all points at the heart of the matter, yet none have been addressed.

I think publishers have forfeited the right to earn a profit by the past behavior: http://bjoern.brembs.net/comment-n820.html See also ten most expensive journals: http://www.bibliothek.kit.edu/cms/english/most-expensive-journals%20.php

It's true that the high cost of journal articles leads some people in biotech companies like you and hibob to justify using an under-the-table fashion to get papers by finding someone with login access to a university library.

You were lucky you could use your MIT and Harvard logins for this purpose.

Some people might argue that using library resources in this way sounds like stealing.

Sandra - like others in small biotech, we actually didn't have to steal anything. But it's clear you're not familiar with start-up science. BTW - I have a couple of other posts with some key considerations in this great debate. Would appreciate seeing them posted and responded to.

Authors can choose not to publish in these expensive journals, and have to take responsibility for their decisions: http://ibiosphere.blogspot.com/2012/01/contributions-and-responsibiliti…

Wow, don't you guys have University Libraries in the US? In Australia it only costs $80 a year for an alumni, and you can access all the journals the Uni has.

There are about 1100 community colleges in the U.S. and about of the undergraduates in the U.S. attend one.

None of them have University libraries.

When I looked at the costs of downloading scientific articles last year, DeepDyve was offering $0.99 for "renting" an article for 24 hours. While you can't retain the paper this way, perhaps this approach is a step in the direction you suggest?

Alumni have access to journals in Australia? Iâve asked for just that in NZ over years and get told it's not done and that you can only access books this way. (With a lower status than other users. Keep meaning to check what the story is for Cambridge University alumni as an alternative to the local universities.)

One moreâsorry about the rain of commentsâthe initiative by the Wellcome Trust, the Max Planck Society and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute includes the idea of that publication is to be directly funded by research funders. I don't know if this initiative will fly, but the ideas they present are worth reading. (See link on my name; do follow this through to Frankâs post.)

(Sandra: Iâve a comment in moderation - I included a link in it, thatâll teach me!)

Yeah, there is some access, but not everything is available electronically - but everything is available if you actually go in to the library.

All of that said, I do agree that most journals are ridiculously expensive.

@justsaying Federally funded research is not a "private product." Currently, authors are required to deposit their manuscripts with pubmed central when they are accepted for publication. One year after journal publication, they are made available to the public in pubmed central. The journals are not required to do anything or give away anything, ever. Presumably, the one-year lag time between publication and open manuscripts go some way toward protecting subscriptions and journal sales, even though the industry would prefer eternal exclusive rights. (Unfortunately, I'd note that compliance with public access regulations is spotty on the part of authors, at least in my field.)

To me the question is, "Why do journals have exclusive distribution rights for information/work that the American taxpayer has paid millions of dollars for?" and "If research doesn't get into the hands of those who can benefit from it, then why do we fund it at all?"

Sandra - I now have two comments in moderation!

@Grant & others: I tried adding you as a "trusted" commenter. Hopefully that will minimize the problems with getting caught in the spam filter.

@Jane - I would say we don't have an access problem in this country. When polled, journal access is never a cause for concern for researchers. Funding is.

Apparently you weren't around before the days of the NIH 12 month embargo was lobbied for and snuck into an appropriations bill a few years ago. PubMed is a publicly funded repository that only benefits researchers. The public could care less. Yet it was sold as "for the public." Since that time, has there been a surge in science or development? No.

Yes, the taxpayer funded the research. No argument. So should inventions, device or drugs that result from taxpayer investment be free as well? Same argument. But scientists would never agree to send a check to the US treasury for their royalties. Those are their patents. Yet, when it comes to journals, it's "everyone's" science.

The journals serve a role that costs money, as others have commented on here in this blog (other entries perhaps). The question is, who pays?

Sandra: thank you. I like the idea Iâm "trusted" :-) (Actually my own blog commenting effectively works this way full-time; first-time commenters are effectively vetted, but it's really to avoid spam.)

NickE: I can't access anything electronically, which is what Iâd like. The libraries now only take some journals electronically, photocopies chew up time and money (and trees), and in any event I use PDF copies for future reference (writing up stuff, so I can key-word search the full text, etc.)

The link for my download costs article (see 4:49pm) is on my name.

@Just saying: I think the public uses PubMed more than you know.

It would be really interesting to see the web log data.

@Grant - I don't think the "trusted commenter" setting really works. Our infrastructure is going to ... well, you know.

Sandra - uh-huh :-) Thanks for trying, though.

yea i agree with you david it didnt make sense but reading thru the article it kinda makes sense

Answer to comment number 2 : BMC like PLoS is a gold open access publishing model. The author pays for the publication. The reader has the article for free.

@just saying I'm a member of the public. I care. I'm involved in mental health advocacy and use pubmed often. Many laypeople my field have pubmed email alerts to keep an eye on research developments. There's a major gap between research and clinical practice in the area of mental health I'm most interested in. I've been working in this area for several years, since well before the NIH public access policy was implemented.

You're just dead wrong that individuals don't purchase articles for $30/each. I do several times a month. I maintain membership in two professional societies to have access to their journals. I'm not publicly funded.

Research is NOT only of use to researchers. It is hugely important to practicing clinicians and "consumers." And yes, there has been progress in pubic understanding of mental health in recent years. Research DOES have an impact on public health. It should, and would, have more of an impact if federally funded research wasn't held hostage by journals. Taypayers paid for the research. It's theirs.

Your analogy to devices doesn't hold. The federally funded research those devices are based on should be available for free, not the devices themselves. Same with journals. No one expects them to give away free hardcopies. Their subscriptions are protected by the one-year embargo. That's more than fair.

Journals make remarkably little investment to produce their product, yet enjoy large returns. Deutsche Bank recently had this to say about Reed Elsevier:

"In justifying the margins earned, the publishers, REL included, point to the highly skilled nature of the staff they employ (to pre-vet submitted papers prior to the peer review process, the support they provide to the peer review panels, including modest stipends, the complex typesetting, printing and distribution activities, including Web publishing and hosting. REL employs around 7,000 peole in its Science business as a whole. REL also argues that the high margins reflect economies of scale and the very high levels of efficiency with which they operate.

We believe the publisher adds relatively little value to the publishing process. We are not attempting to dismiss what 7,000 people at REL do for a living. We are simply observing that if the process really were as complex, costly and value-added as the publishers protest that it is, 40% margins wouldn't be available." Read more here: http://southernlibrarianship.icaap.org/content/v09n03/mcguigan_g01.html…

I work at small liberal arts college. We do not have access to a wide range of articles including some top notch ones. Why? Cost. Articles that are available to the public are a life saver. Colleagues at community colleges also agree. We try to integrate research articles & reviews into our courses. Colleagues at public 4 year universities have similar issues.

When I was a postdoc, I would get requests from friends who moved to industry and did not have access to a number of journals. Why? Once again cost.

Content is king. The content is generated by the authors who tend to pay a fee of some sort to publish. Reviewers of the content are free. Some sort of staff is required but given how much of the work has shifted to the authors in the last two decades thanks to the digital revolution. Those cost savings have primarily increased the profit margins of companies like Elsevier.

@ponderingfool Exactly! I had to laugh at Elsevier's talk about "complex typesetting." They're not churning out Guttenberg Bibles. And web publishing and hosting is far less expensive than print. It's an industry that leverages taxpayer money and authors/reviewers who work for next-to-nothing to generate massive profits.

Gracias por escribir

Great article! You can also read my post about Open Peer Review: http://www.strategy-of-innovation.com/article-open-peer-review-is-final…

@justsaying

To start of lets all be clear on the fact that margins are not 5% but closer to or above 40% like Jane mentioned above, thats how a company like Elsevier can show over a Billion dollars in pure profits, mening not the turnover figure but the amount the company can take out and give to its owners after the costs of publishing(thats alot of money to do research for).

We also have to realise that publishing something in todays world does not require the creation of a physical item, the cost of giving someone a copy of an article doesn't cost more than the energy to transmit the information/bits, so the main cost of production is not in the distribution but the creation of the article which is mainly done by the researcher believe it or not, so the cost/benefit ratio will become better for every view and not worse as you seemed to be suggesting.

One of the real problems for increased competition is not the high cost of publishing but the researchers themselves who feel they have to publish in certain prestigious journals when alternatives do exist.

A viewer-pays model would be great if there were companies making money off of publishing their research but that is not what we have. Justsaying you must realise that most people don't feel its right to first have to pay for something than be denied it and told to pay even more if you want access to it.

Everyone so far(I haven't read ALL the comments) seems to be forgetting that the PUBLIC, i.e. the taxpayer, i.e., me, is paying (in some part) for the research. Therefore, why I am not able to view the output from this research without paying exorbitant fees? How can anyone ignore those who may not have the credentials but have an avid interest in new knowledge?

I'm the CIO of a startup accelerator (Blueseed), and one of the startups that applied to us, RockYourPaper, is working on reducing the cost of acquiring scientific journals from $30 to $5. You can find a presentation video of their idea if you search YouTube for "Rock your paper".

I'd be curious to see your thoughts.

The RockYourPaper video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-avlziKuXO4

Also, the screenshot in the blog doesn't show.

Feel free to merge this comment with my previous one.

I wanted to say a few things here (1). I am on an IPad so please acknowledge the greatest enemy is autocorrect. (2). As far as the other is concerned I agree completely with Sandra the journals are overpriced and why can't they just be cheap online copies. If the publishing cost was so high then post it online. You could merely charge users access for the site like $20/year and libraries would be like $150. That would be what normal magazines cost and because the journal doesn't even pay for the workers to research they make a reasonable rate of return. (3). End-user pp should be reasonable because what Just is saying makes no sense. I mean do you live in America? How many ppl have Science bachelor degrees who need to be kept in the loop while looking for a job or to get into a masters program?

(4). I cannot fathom Justs pov at all, I am trying to be understanding here it is just IMO I can find no common ground with what he says. (5). Even if we want to continue to print magazines and get subscriptions (how oddly unscientific what a quagmire?) why don't they make the prices accessible to govt organizations (libraries) so we can all go and look at them in the library? I have to say I have read some peer-reviewed things about triclosan and alcohol that should be public it is borderline endangering there health when it is vindictively bio accumulating in fats and nobody knows what it will do. (6). Beyond that what about the issue of science that came out about H5N1 recently? Should the public not know about that? Yet we have the darn Susan G. Komen foundation probably laundering money away from everyone. We all seem to know that "91 cents of every dollar" goes to research and we don't see enough return on that money in terms of real effective treatment of IDC do we? You're question is why is that relevant right? I will tell you because the avg person wants to see these findings in the dang journals (if there was no interest most people wouldn't care. They would just donate to a bunch of random charities and say "well I hope dem doctors gotz a clue."

I mean without scrutiny BC research so panties would be like yeah we are making progress which we are already in danger of having yet you would go further away huh? I feel like I am a smart guy but if you think you can look at some study determine its CI, "bias" coviartes and a few more things then say the data is valid I say bullspoo. The more people looking into these things the better IMO there is always someone smarter than you and we need to have them at least hAve a fighting chance to come to the table no? My friends who are doctors are always telling me they don't know what they can trust.

Would it not be better to have more people challenge Dr. Potti's findings earlier on and potentially save money, time, and lives? It just seems wrong in such a fundamental way that I don't think I could ever agree.

Let me finish by saying something probably even more controversial here. the problems we face as both a nation and a world can be solved, it takes people to do that. Forget this overcrowding crap, we need ideas that can change the world and help us proceed. We are throwing away food at record pace around the world so don't say that we will starve. It is a matter of combating these kind of problems with many brains and if we do overpopulated the planet then somebody will get the idea to make extra-terrestrial settling work. If memory serves it was Linus Pauling who said, "If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas.". Who better to have ideas then the public instead of behind closed doors in overpriced journals written in a language that is "dead,". Are we not causing our own harm?

As the stereotypical broke science-major college student, I can personally attest to the utter frustration of over-priced journal articles. I go to a small college (pop. 800) with only minimal research with grants that only come every blue moon; occasionally some random alumni makes it rich and donates money -- but that only goes to random, useless sculptures built outside of the library. The point is, my school has little money for the library to purchase journal subscriptions and, even then, only the bare-bones subscription; if any of my professors want us to read a specific article, they have to procure a personal subscription for the journal out of their own pocket.

As a science-major I spend a ridiculous amount of time writing research papers for my classes and the only acceptable sources are peer-reviewed journal articles...which I don't have ready access to. Sure, there are some articles that are tangentially related to the topic of whatever paper I'm writing at the time but they are usually fairly useless. The articles that would be perfect? Those would cost me, personally, between $30 and $50 an article. I would spend that kind of money on the twenty or so articles I need but, I kind of like eating every now and then.

So, Just Saying, please, remove your rose-colored glasses and join the rest of the world. The majority of those who want/need to read those over-priced articles don't have the money to purchase them or have access to someone who does. Also, people aren't interested in what they have to pay ridiculous prices to access; more people would interested in research journal articles if they didn't require the sacrifice of grocery, utility, or car bill payments. So, Just Saying, until you're praying that the kid who just walked out of the cafeteria not only won't eat all of his rice (because you don't dare hope for the chicken) but would also be willing to give you said leftover rice, you don't get to argue back.

interesting article, thanks!

I've just bumped into it now. I know it's been a while and I've only read the comments superficially, but have two things to say:

@Sandra - BMC works as PLoS: the author pays for the articles to be published, then the article is immediately made freely available (I worked there)

@Just: in response to your comment "How do you think the cost of publishing would explode when their demand increases 5 or 10 fold? The author pays model is actually a pure giveaway to publishers. In a few years, it won’t be a $3000 fee for the author. It’ll be $5000, or $7000 just to print more journals that sit on bookshelves."

most, if not all, Open Access journals are actually online, which means an increase in demand won´t make the prices go up. In any case, it might make them go down, if e.g. higher visits to their sites can bring them more money from advertisers, etc. (I don't know this, just a guess)

How Much Does It Cost To Publish in Science

Just writing a good research paper for a scientific journal is often enough to get published. Publishing one’s article often involves considerable monetary expenses as well. There are certain misconceptions about publishing that need to be clarified on the matter of author charges; (a) not all well-reputed peer-reviewed journals publish good quality articles for free and (b) any journal asking for an article processing charge is not necessarily a fraud or predatory journal.

Asking authors for certain charges for publication is a common practice that depends on the various business models followed by different journals, which in turn determines how they monetize the entire process. Depending on the business models, there are numerous forms of charges or levies that different journals impose on authors.

Well established traditional journals that have a substantive subscription base or a well-endowed trust to back their activities often do not charge fees from authors. But that too is not a set norm as many of them may charge some or nominal charges nonetheless. Some journals today do not charge money for the digital versions of the articles but request contribution to cover printing charges and distribution. Open access journals, which are often digital-only, may also charge fees to cover for peer-review and other administrative or operational expenses. There are different business models even for open access journals where some maybe subscription-based while others giving free access to anyone. Depending on the mode of access, the article processing charges may vary.

In most cases, good academic institutions are subscribers of good journals or have a membership or other such arrangements, such that any author from these institutions offering a research paper or review article for publication get institutional monetary support. This may be in the form of discount rates or even nominal expense coverage/grants for publication. Did you know that 21.8% of respondents in the USA prefer shopping on Amazon over other websites ? Check out this article for coupons and discounts on your favorite products.

Some of the typical forms of charges associated with publishing in a scientific journal are:

Submission fee: many peer-reviewed journals levy a submission fee at the time of the review article submission. While authors may find this practice to be restrictive, some journals levy it only to keep spamming or substandard submissions at bay.

Membership fee: some journals seek to develop long-term relationships with authors and charge a membership fee. This covers charges for a specified number of articles over some specified time. Some also seek authors to do peer-review for other articles in exchange for getting their articles reviewed. The charges may depend on the type of engagement.

Publication fees: this is the most commonly understood charge, also known as author publishing charges or article processing charges (both read as APC), that covers the actual cost of publication.

A peer-reviewed article may charge all or a combination of these charges for a research paper. Thus, you may be charged a subscription fee during submission, and only have to pay a publication fee if your articles qualify for publication after peer review.

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The true costs of research and publishing

Kathryn m. rudy considers the huge expenses of doing scholarly work in her field of art history.

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In academia, as everybody knows, it’s publish or perish. But it turns out that it’s also publish and perish: publishing, at least in my field of art history, leads to poverty. I am a full professor, fully employed, but I am contemplating getting a second job to support myself and my research. Paradoxically, the more successful I am, the poorer I get.

Here I want to address a few major systemic issues that art historians encounter. Although writing illustrated publications is widely acknowledged to be a key part of our job, and required by hiring and promotions committees, our universities do not adequately support these activities. In fact, universities expect us to absorb enormous costs.

I write about late medieval culture, manuscripts and their original functions, the structure and stratigraphy of manuscripts assembled over time, experimental shifts from manuscript to print, and forensic methods of detecting historical use of books. During my time at St Andrews, I have published six monographs, incorporating 1,215 images in all, and a seventh will appear in 2020 or 2021. I have also published 14 articles, which represent another 120 images, plus one article that had 84 images alone. I have therefore used a total of 1,419 images in books and articles that either can be or have been submitted to the research excellence framework by the university.

For the kind of work I do, it would be impossible to publish the ideas without having the images. The images form a dataset, a kind of proof that allows the reader to verify that what I am saying is true.

Yet writing and publishing my books has cost me everything I have. Here’s a breakdown of the eight kinds of costs involved in researching, illustrating and publishing them:

• Travelling to collections to undertake original research on medieval manuscripts . Only a fraction of the world’s manuscripts have been digitised and put online. In any event, the kind of research I do, involving use-wear analysis and structural interrogation, requires looking at the objects first-hand. I take dozens of flights and train journeys every year to visit collections and study them. For Rubrics, Images and Indulgences in Late Medieval Netherlandish Manuscripts (2017), I took over 550 trips to 163 individual repositories of medieval manuscripts. For my other projects, I did not count individual trips. Some libraries I visited many times. For example, I made more than 200 trips to the Royal Library in Brussels over a 12-year period. (Those between 2003 and 2006 were funded by the Dutch government, but the rest were self-funded.)
• Buying study photographs . In the past, scholars would buy microfilms that contained, usually in black and white, a shot of each folio or opening. This technology is largely outdated, and it is hard to find a microfilm reader. Hand-held photos that I take with my own digital camera are vastly superior, because I can shoot details such as gutters with stubs indicating missing folios, backlighted folios that reveal where something was sewn in or folios in raking light that reveal surface contours. Many collections allow researchers to use their phones or cameras to take study-quality photos of their manuscripts, although some libraries extract money for the right to photograph. For example, in the diocesan library in Wrocław (Breslau, Poland), I had to pay a large fee, in cash, to the priest in charge of the collection, for the privilege of using a camera. Even worse, many collections such as the Fitzwilliam Museum, the British Library and the Zentralbibliothek in Zurich do not allow photography of their illuminated manuscripts at all. If a manuscript has not been digitally catalogued on their web pages, the researcher must pay for professionally made images in order to have a record for study. Currently, at the British Library, medium-resolution images cost £29.95 for the first image, and £8 for each subsequent image from the same manuscript. At the Fitzwilliam, new photography costs £35, and obtaining existing high-resolution images £40 per shot. The cost of buying study images from these collections is holding back my research. One manuscript at the British Library that I needed to have digitised was a prayer roll 11 metres long. After making two self-funded trips from Scotland to London to see it – trips costing about £450 each when you add up the train, hotel and restaurants – I decided that commissioning photography was the only way I could adequately study the roll, its components and their stratigraphy. I paid £314.34 to have the manuscript digitised. Immediately afterwards, the British Library put the images I had commissioned on its website for everyone to use. Although I want the public to have access to this magnificent and odd manuscript, is it really my job to subsidise access out of my own pocket?
• Paying registration, accommodation and travel fees to share research at conferences. In my field of medieval studies, there are two main annual conferences, one in Leeds (England) and one in Kalamazoo, Michigan (US). Presenting research in public forums such as these is an essential part of the process of idea formation. Audience members ask questions that help to shape the research, and giving public presentations helps to sharpen a researcher’s arguments. Between the transportation, accommodation, food and registration fees, attending these events costs between £750 and £2,300. (The School of Art History gives us an annual research budget of £1,200. This is supposed to cover undertaking research and attending conferences. In fact, I spend that amount on research every month.)
• Buying high-resolution images for publication. Publishers demand 300 dpi digital images for publication. The directorate at the Royal Library in The Hague believes that the public already owns the collection items and should not have to pay for them twice. Yet other institutions charge enormous fees for high-res images, such as Stockholm’s Royal Library, where a single image costs SKr1,500 (£143.80). I received a recent order from the Bodleian Library in Oxford for images totalling £4,753.38 for my next book, about deliberate and inadvertent damage in manuscripts. Because the work usually involves showing the damage in its context, most of the order consists of two-page spreads. The shots cost £17.20 apiece, and the library insists that each side of the opening must be photographed separately. Of the 1,419 images I have published since 2011, I was given 70 by my former professor, James Marrow, and 20 were provided free by curators (largely from German, Dutch and French libraries). About 366 came from the Royal Library in The Netherlands, where the images cost only €5 apiece. But that leaves around 963 that I paid for myself, at a conservatively estimated average cost of £25 per image, totalling more than £24,000 out of pocket. (If I’d had to pay at the rate charged by the Swedish Royal Library, my bill for high-resolution images alone would have been £204,052.20.)
• Paying for data storage. I keep the thumbnails of some 750,000 images on my local machine to have constant access to them. They are the records of all I have seen and the drivers behind all of my publications. The full-size “mother images” I keep on a sprawling series of 8-terabyte hard drives, with a back-up in the cloud. The university pays for my hardware and software, but I pay about £1,000 per year for cloud storage out of my own pocket.
• Paying copyright fees. Many institutions, especially those in the UK, demand a fee for allowing scholars to publish their images in books and articles, even those for scholarly audiences. For my recent book, Image, Knife, and Gluepot: Early Assemblage in Manuscript and Print (2019), published as a free, open-access book, the British Library charged me £15 per image from its collection, of which there were 56, for a total of £840 (reduced after a pleading letter to £504). Likewise, I received an invoice from the Bodleian for £4,736 plus 20 per cent VAT (£5,683) for the reproduction costs of my next book, Touching Skin: How Medieval Users Rubbed, Touched, and Kissed Their Manuscripts.
• Providing free copies of books. Scholars are obligated to supply free copies of their books to the libraries that provided images (as well as for the REF). In Postcards on Parchment: The Social Life of Medieval Books (2015) , I published images from 70 different libraries and also gave copies to individuals who had offered help and information. For all these giveaways, the publisher provided five free copies, so I had to buy another 75 from my own pocket, totalling £1,675, to fulfil the contractual obligations.
• Paying for production fees. Publishers often extract fees from authors. But this is not vanity publishing. This is fully peer-reviewed, bona fide academic publishing. When I submitted a complete book manuscript to a Canadian university press in 2015, the editor demanded proof that I could supply a C$48,000 (£30,000) production fee before he would send it out to reviewers. Brill received €8,750 (£8,000) for producing Rubrics, Images and Indulgences (2017), which a private donor kindly paid for me. Open Book asks £3,500 for each title it publishes. (There are three or four funds that help to subsidise production fees. Competition for them is fierce, and they usually pay between $500 and $1,000.)

As a result of all these costs, the more I publish, the poorer I am. After working at St Andrews for eight years, I own no property. I have no savings. My pension will be minuscule. Yet I have had to plough most of my disposable income back into research activities that have helped make the university shine. (The Principal’s Office asked me to supply a copy of Postcards on Parchment, as a showpiece or gift for a visitor.)

So what needs to be done? If universities actually desire (and reward with promotion) research in the humanities, they need to bring funding into line with costs. US institutions give their professors much more research funding. If we are to keep pace with them on a world stage, then we need more access to resources. I have expressed my willingness for years to work with development to raise money for these activities.

Image-holding institutions should rethink their purpose. They can never have enough in-house expertise to fully research all of their holdings. They should be grateful to scholars who are applying their expertise to their collections. The least they can do is to make images available for free. They should also allow researchers to make study photographs and produce high-resolution images for publication at low costs.

Digital publishing is simply the most efficient and cost-effective way to get ideas out into the world. We need to fully legitimate digital, online, peer-reviewed publishing and make it the norm. We need to create a world where young people will publish online, without fearing that it will harm their careers.

It sometimes seems to me that academic success is designed for people who are already wealthy, just as first-class seating in airplanes is designed for tall men. Underfunded humanities are an extension of unpaid internships and poorly paid fellowships in museums. Do we really believe that our disciplines are just a decoration and offer viable careers only to those with trust funds?

Kathryn M. Rudy is professor of art history at the University of St Andrews . Her most recent book is   Image, Knife, and Gluepot: Early Assemblage in Manuscript and Print (2019).

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How Much Does It Cost to Write a Research Paper? (Answered)

by  Antony W

July 6, 2022

A research paper project is often too long to complete in a short time. If you have many assignments to complete but don’t have enough time for the research project, it might make sense to seek for academic writing help. But how much does it cost to write a research paper?

The average cost for writing a research paper is $15 to $40 per page. However, the cost varies based on a number of factors, including spacing, number of pages, assignment briefs, the writing service provider, and the assigned deadline.

Some writing agencies offer some type of coupon codes on an occasional basis to enable students who need help with their writing to get their research paper done at an affordable price.

In this post, we’ll look at the factors that determine exactly how much it would cost you to have your research paper written by someone other than yourself.

The information in this guide should help you make the decision on whether to hire academic writing services   or write the research paper yourself.

How Much Does It Cost to Write a Research Paper? 

The following are the factors that determine how much it would cost you to have a research paper written:

1. Marketing Competition Highly Influences Research Paper Writing Cost

We can't possibly count the number of essay writing service   websites available on the internet.

The writing industry is booming, new writing website go live on the web every month, and freelancers sell research paper writing on platforms such as Upwork and Freelancer.

Competition in the research paper industry has intensified owing to this trend and the availability of many writing services has a significant impact on how much you’ll spend to write a research paper.

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3. The Cost to Write a Research Paper Varies Based on Deadlines

When it comes to having your research paper written by a professional writing service, time management is a critical consideration.

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About the author 

Antony W is a professional writer and coach at Help for Assessment. He spends countless hours every day researching and writing great content filled with expert advice on how to write engaging essays, research papers, and assignments.

• Planning to Write

Q: What is the cost of publishing a thesis?

Asked by Jerit Dube on 05 Feb, 2019

A thesis or dissertation is a product of original research and is a requirement for obtaining your university degree. It involves months and sometimes even years of research, writing and rewriting to complete. However, sadly, though so much of rigorous work goes into your thesis, universities do not formally publish it. Printed copies are kept at the university library and are circulated internally. Some universities require that students publish this final research in peer-reviewed journals prior to being considered eligible to graduate, but many don't.

However, at the end of the day, it is the fruit of your labor and will definitely add value to the existing knowledge in your field. Therefore, you should try to publish your thesis formally so that it has a wide readership. But a thesis cannot be published as is. The best way to publish your thesis is to restructure it into smaller journal articles and publish these in academic journals .

Regarding the cost of publishing,  not all journals charge to publish. There are two different publication models: subscription based and open access  (OA). If you publish in subscription-based journals, you might have to pay only some nominal charges for color figures etc.

On the other hand,  OA journals may charge fees for publishing. These are known as Article Processing Charges(APC) and the amount varies widely across journals. You should first shortlist a few target journals from your field and then check the website of each one to find out whether they charge an APC and how much. 

Related reading:

• Misconception about APCs deters an author from publishing open access: A case study
• Can I ask the journal to give me a discount on the APC?
• How do I write to the journal asking for a discount on the APC?

Answered by Editage Insights on 14 Feb, 2019

• Upvote this Answer

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Original research

Publishing at any cost: a cross-sectional study of the amount that medical researchers spend on open access publishing each year, mallory k. ellingson.

1 Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Xiaoting Shi

2 Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Joshua J. Skydel

3 Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

4 Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Yale School of Public Health; and Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Richard Lehman

5 Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Joseph S. Ross

6 Section of General Medicine and the National Clinician Scholars Program, Department of Internal Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

7 Department of Health Policy and Management, Yale School of Public Health; and Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Yale-New Haven Health System, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Joshua D. Wallach

Associated data.

To estimate the financial costs paid by individual medical researchers from meeting the article processing charges (APCs) levied by open access journals in 2019.

Cross-sectional analysis.

Data sources

Scopus was used to generate two random samples of researchers, the first with a senior author article indexed in the ‘Medicine’ subject area (general researchers) and the second with an article published in the ten highest-impact factor general clinical medicine journals (high-impact researchers) in 2019. For each researcher, Scopus was used to identify all first and senior author original research or review articles published in 2019. Data were obtained from Scopus, institutional profiles, Journal Citation Reports, publisher databases, the Directory of Open Access Journals, and individual journal websites.

Main outcome measures

Median APCs paid by general and high-impact researchers for all first and senior author research and review articles published in 2019.

There were 241 general and 246 high-impact researchers identified as eligible for our study. In 2019, the general and high-impact researchers published a total of 914 (median 2, IQR 1–5) and 1471 (4, 2–8) first or senior author research or review articles, respectively. 42% (384/914) of the articles from the general researchers and 29% (428/1471) of the articles from the high-impact medical researchers were published in fully open access journals. The median total APCs paid by general researchers in 2019 was US$191 (US$0–US$2500) and the median total paid by high-impact researchers was US$2900 (US$0–US$5465); the maximum paid by a single researcher in total APCs was US$30115 and US$34676, respectively.

Conclusions

Medical researchers in 2019 were found to have paid between US$0 and US$34676 in total APCs. As journals with APCs become more common, it is important to continue to evaluate the potential cost to researchers, especially on individuals who may not have the funding or institutional resources to cover these costs.

Strengths and limitations of this study

• This cross-sectional analysis estimated the financial costs paid by a large (n=487) randomly selected sample of individual medical researchers from meeting the article processing charges (APCs) levied by open access journals in 2019.
• This analysis used a large number of sources to identify author and journal data, including Scopus, author institutional profiles, Journal Citation Reports, publisher databases on APCs, the Directory of Open Access Journals and individual journal websites.
• Secondary and sensitivity analyses were conducted considering author (gender, affiliation, region and training), journal, and APC-related characteristics.
• Without access to the financial records from the index researchers and journals in our sample, our estimates do not represent the actual APCs that the index researchers in our sample paid.

Introduction

Publications in peer-reviewed journals are currency in the academic world, and are often viewed as a proxy for productivity, competency and prestige. With over 15 million publishing scientists across the world, 1 2 the pressure to publish has only risen, as has the importance of publications for employment, promotion and tenure. 3 Over the past decade, there has been a striking growth in the number of scientific articles published per year, with nearly 2.5 million scientific articles published in 2018 alone. 4 The sheer quantity of scientific research being published, the shift to predominantly electronic publishing and a broad movement to make scientific research more transparent has wrought a dramatic change in the landscape of scientific publishing. 5 6

Currently, the primary mechanism for the publication of scientific articles is through peer-reviewed journals. For the most part, these journals have operated using a subscription model, generally owned and managed by a professional society or a medical publisher. Under this model, the cost to individual researchers, either to access articles or publish their own research in the journals, is minimal (although they contribute substantial in-kind effort through peer and editorial review). Instead, institutions pay subscription fees, which can reach millions of dollars for larger publishers, to gain access to articles for the institution’s affiliates. 7 8

However, over the past 20 years, a new model of scientific publishing emerged in parallel with a rise in digital ‘publication’ rather than print distribution—open access publishing. 5 Generally, open access journals forgo subscriptions for their online content and instead make research available to scholars without institutional subscriptions and to the general public. With no revenue from subscriptions, some open access journals established a new business model built primarily around article processing charges (APCs). 5 Compared with the subscription journals, the APC model has shifted part of the financial burden of publishing from academic institutions to individual researchers and their funders, who are responsible for APCs that average US$2000 (£1568) to US$3000 (£2352) per article. 9 10

With almost 5000 open access journals following the APC business model, 11 researchers are increasingly having to consider if and how they can afford to publish their research in open access journals with the limited pool of funds available. While the vast majority of medical researchers are supportive of the concept of open access publishing, over half listed financial barriers as the primary reason they would choose not to publish in open access journals. 12 Although APCs can be covered with funds from research grants or by funders directly, not all research is grant funded, the structure and amount of funding that comes from grants can vary by field, and the ability or willingness of funders to cover APCs differs by region. 10 13 Additionally, early career researchers or under-represented minority researchers may have more limited access to grant funding or institutional funds to cover APCs, as do researchers in less lucrative clinical fields like primary care and public health. 14–16 While fee waivers are sometimes granted to researchers in low-income and middle-income countries or without funding, discounted APCs may still be prohibitive for many researchers. 17 18

If financial barriers play such a substantial role in scientists’ decisions on where to publish, it is important to investigate the potential financial costs of publishing on individual medical researchers. Therefore, we aimed to estimate how much individual medical researchers spend on APCs over the course of a year for both a general sample of medical researchers as well a sample of researchers who published in the highest impact factor clinical medicine journals in 2019.

Study design and sample

We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of two random samples of medical researchers to obtain estimates of the average amount of money that individual researchers spend on APCs each year. We used Scopus to identify 250 general medical researchers and 250 medical researchers who published at least one article in one of the ten highest impact factor general clinical medicine journals.

Generating a sample of general and high-impact researchers

First, we downloaded the first 20000 English language research or review articles published in a journal indexed in the Scopus subject area of ‘Medicine’ in 2019 ( figure 1 ), the maximum data export permitted through the Scopus portal. Next, we used Scopus to identify all research or review articles published in the top ten highest impact factor clinical medicine journals in 2019 (according to the Journal Citation Report (JCR) 19 : New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), British Medical Journal, JAMA Internal Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, PLOS Medicine, BMC Medicine, Mayo Clinic Proceedings and Canadian Medical Association Journal. For each sample, we used a random number generator to select 500 articles. However, given the broad nature of the search used, some articles randomly selected did not fall under the category of ‘general clinical medicine,’ or were other article types misclassified as research or review articles. Therefore, the first 250 articles determined to be eligible were retained for each sample (i.e., 250 general medicine articles and 250 high-impact medicine articles).

A visualisation of the sampling and data abstraction approach. APCs, article processing charges.

Next, we identified the senior-most (i.e., last) author of each research or review article contained in the sample (hereafter, index researcher). Potential duplicate researchers were verified and removed through a Scopus and/or Google Scholar search of the researcher’s name. If authorship was listed as a group, without any designated individuals, the manuscript was excluded from the sample. If a group authorship was listed as the senior author, the senior-most individual author on the article was used.

Data collection

Three investigators (MKE, XS and JJS) independently abstracted data, and to ensure data quality, approximately 20% of each sample was abstracted in duplicate to verify consistency. All uncertainties were discussed with a fourth investigator (JDW). All data abstraction and validation were conducted between 22 April and 22 July 2020.

Researcher information

For the index researchers in both samples, we used the researcher’s Scopus profile to collect the researcher’s name, affiliation, geographical region (based on the six WHO regions), 20 H-index, year of first publication and research field. Research field was collected from the subject area tags listed on the researcher Scopus profile. For each index researcher, we conducted a Google search of the researcher’s name and screened the first 10 pages to identify an institutional researcher profile. If a researcher profile was available, we also abstracted researcher gender, if clearly indicated in the profile or through identification of gender pronouns, and training (a doctor of medicine (MD), with or without other degrees; a doctor of philosophy (PhD), with or without other degrees (excluding MD); or any other degrees).

Identification of first and senior author publications in 2019

Using the Scopus profile of each index researcher, we identified all of the articles published in 2019 where the index researcher was listed as either the first or senior author. Articles on which the index researcher was a middle author (no matter if 3 authors were listed or 20) were excluded, as we assumed the index researcher would not have paid any associated APC as a middle author. For each article, we abstracted the corresponding journal’s title and determined whether the article was marked as open access in Scopus. 21

Journal characteristics and APCs

We used JCR to determine the 2018 journal impact factor for each unique journal. Next, we identified the journal publishing model (open access, hybrid or subscription based) and the APCs for each journal. A hybrid journal was defined as a traditional subscription-based journal with a fee-based open access publication option. 22 To ascertain APCs, we first used publisher-specific databases, 23–37 which provide lists of open access and hybrid journals from selected publishers and their associated APCs. If a journal could not be identified through a publisher database, we used the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) 11 to identify if the journal was open access. If listed on DOAJ, the journal was considered open access and the corresponding APC was collected from the provided link to the journal website on DOAJ. If the publishing model of a journal could not be determined from those two sources, we relied on the information provided on individual journal websites. Journals without a clear open access policy (either full open access or a hybrid approach) were considered subscription-based.

We defined the standard APC for an open access journal as the fee associated with publishing in that journal. For hybrid journals, we defined the APC as the fee associated with optional open access publication. We did not include additional fees not associated with open access publication, such as charges for colour printing or reprints, as part of the APCs. If an APC for a given journal was based on word count or page limits, we approximated the standard APC using an average article (3500 words) or page count (8 pages). 38 In addition to the standard APC, we collected the minimum APC for any journal with multiple APC options. The minimum APC was defined as the lowest APC a researcher could pay given any discounts publicly listed by the journal on the journal website or in the publishing database or different licensing options (e.g., institutional or author membership discounts or commercial vs non-commercial licenses).

Statistical analysis

Using descriptive statistics, we characterised the sample of both the general researchers and high-impact researchers, including gender, affiliation, training, geographical region and seniority (based on H-Index and length of the researcher’s career). Length of the researcher’s career was approximated by subtracting the year of the index researcher’s first publication from 2020.

Next, we calculated the median (IQR) APCs paid by index researchers in 2019 for both groups. To do this, for each index researcher, we calculated the maximum total APCs paid in 2019 by assuming that an APC was paid by the index researcher if they were the first or senior author of an article. If an index researcher’s article was published in an open access journal with an APC listed, we assumed that the APC was paid without any discounts or waivers. For any of the index researcher’s articles published in either hybrid or subscription-based journals, we assumed no APC was paid. Lastly, we also calculated the proportion of articles published in open access journals.

We used the Mann-Whitney U test or Mood’s test as appropriate to compare median APCs paid per index researcher by the characteristics noted above. For comparisons of APCs paid by H-Index and length of the researcher’s career, we compared researchers above and below the median H-Index and across quartiles in each sample, respectively. Any unknown values were considered as missing. US dollar amounts were converted to British pound sterling using the average exchange rate for 2019. 39 All data analyses were conducted in R (version 3.6.1; The R Project for Statistical Computing) and used a threshold for statistical significance of 0.05.

Sensitivity analyses

We repeated the analyses above assuming that index researchers paid: (1) the minimum publicly listed APCs, (2) the APCs for articles published in hybrid journals and classified as ‘Open Access’ on Scopus, (3) APCs for only their first author articles, and (4) APCs for only their senior author articles.

Patient and public involvement

This study was an analysis of publicly available, non-clinical data. There was no patient or public involvement in any of the phases of the study, although we expect the public to be broadly supportive of open access publishing since it permits access to information and does not require expensive subscriptions through medical libraries.

After accounting for duplicate index researchers and non-English publications, our sample included 241 general and 246 high-impact researchers. Among the 241 general researchers, 239 (99.2%) had ‘Medicine’ listed as one of their subject areas on Scopus; all 246 high-impact researchers had ‘Medicine’ listed as one of their subject areas.

Researcher characteristics

Nearly all of the general researchers were affiliated with academic centres or hospitals (236/241, 97.9%); 62 (25.7%) were based in the Americas, 76 (31.5%) in Europe and 69 (28.6%) in the Western Pacific region ( table 1 ). An institutional profile could not be identified for approximately one-quarter of the researchers (62/241, 26.5%). Among the 179 researchers with an institutional profile, two-thirds had an MD (120/179, 67.0%) and 70 (70/179, 39.1%) were women. On average, general researchers had published at least two (median: 2, IQR 0–4) first or senior author articles in 2019, had an H-Index of 11 (median: 11.0, IQR 3.0–23.0), and had at least a 15-year publication history.

Characteristics of general and high-impact medical researchers

*Institutional profile was not available or author gender could not be determined through an institutional profile.

†MD, with or without other degrees; a PhD, with or without other degrees (excluding MD); or any other degrees.

The vast majority of high-impact researchers were affiliated with academic centres or hospitals (213/246, 87.6%); 85.8% (211/246) were primarily based in the Americas or Europe ( table 1 ). An institutional profile was identified for almost all (241/246, 98.0%) of the high-impact researchers. The majority of those with an institutional profile (166/241, 68.9%) had an MD and one-third (82/241, 34.0%) of the researchers were women. High-impact researchers had, on average, a publication history of greater than 20 years, an H-Index of 38.5 (median: 38.5, IQR 22.0–64.0), and had published at least four first or senior author manuscripts in 2019 (median: 4, IQR 2–8).

Article characteristics

In 2019, the 241 general researchers published 914 first or senior author research or review articles in 598 unique journals. The most common journals were Medicine (15/914, 1.6%) and the International Journal of Molecular Sciences (9/914, 1.0%). Among the 462 journals with a 2018 JCR impact factor, the median impact factor among their articles was 2.65 (IQR 1.69–3.86). The 246 high-impact researchers published 1471 original first or senior author research or review articles in 604 unique journals. The most common journals were NEJM (60/1471, 4.1%), The Lancet (43/1471, 2.9%) and PLOS Medicine (36/1471, 2.5%). Among the 537 journals with a 2018 JCR impact factor, the median impact factor was 5.05 (IQR 3.18–11.05).

Of the 914 first or senior author research or review articles published by the general researchers, 414 (414/914, 45.3%) were indexed in Scopus as open access. There were 384 (41.6%) articles published in an APC-based journal ( table 2 ). Of the 457 (457/914, 50.7%) articles published in journals with a hybrid funding model, 72 (72/457, 15.8%) were indexed as open access. Among the high-impact researchers, 726 (726/1471, 49.4%) of the articles were indexed in Scopus as open access. Just under one-third of all articles were published in an APC-based journal (426/1471, 28.9%). Among the 870 (870/1471, 59.1%) articles published in journals with a hybrid funding model, less than one-third (255/870, 29.3%) were open access.

Journal funding models for the articles published by general and high-impact researchers

*A traditional subscription-based journal with a fee-based open access publication option.

Article processing charges

The journal funding model and any associated APCs could be identified for 94.1% (860/914) of the first or senior research or review articles published by the general researchers and 97.8% (1439/1471) of the articles published by the high-impact researchers. In 2019, the 241 general and 246 high-impact researchers paid an estimated total of US$497716 (£390209) and US$1067869 (£837209) in APCs, respectively, for their first and senior author articles. Although the median APCs paid by general clinical medical researchers was US$191 (IQR US$0–US$2500) (£150, £0–£1960), one researcher was estimated as having paid US$30115 (£23610) in APCs ( table 3 ). The median total APCs per researcher in the high-impact sample was US$2900 (IQR US$0–US$5465) (£2274, £0–£4285); one researcher was estimated as having paid as much as US$34676 (£27186) in APCs.

Article processing charges (APCs) for all first and/or senior research and review articles published in 2019

†The minimum APCs paid is defined as the lowest possible APC an author could have paid given the discounts, membership options or licensing options listed on a journal website.

APCs, article processing charges.

In sensitivity analyses, after including potential discounts on standard APCs, the minimum listed APCs general researchers could have paid for their first and senior author publications in 2019 was US$0 (IQR: US$0–US$2500) (£0, £0–£1960) ( table 3 ). However, researchers in the high-impact sample would have paid approximately US$300 less on average (median: US$2600, IQR US$0–US$5465) (£2038, £0–£4285). If all researchers paid the APCs for their first and senior open access published in hybrid journals (as opposed to the articles being made available through delayed open access due to funder requirements, at the discretion of the journal, or through other mechanisms such as self-archiving) the median total APCs paid by the general and high-impact researchers would have been US$739 (IQR US$0–US$3950) (£579, £0–£3097) and US$5000 (IQR US$0–US$10879) (£3920, £0–£8529), respectively.

The estimated median total APCs paid did not vary across index researcher gender, training, H-index and years since first publication ( table 4 ). However, high-impact researchers in the Region of the Americas did have lower median total APCs per researcher than those in other regions of the world (Region of the Americas: US$1695, IQR US$0–US$3935 (£1329, £0–£3085) vs Other regions: US$4800, IQR US$1888–US$8290 (£3763, £1480–£6500); p<0.001).

Standard article processing charges (APCs) for first and senior research and review articles, across researcher characteristics

*Unknown values were considered as missing for these analyses; therefore, row amounts may not sum to column total.

†Calculated using Mann-Whitney U or Mood’s test as appropriate.

‡MD, with or without other degrees; a PhD, with or without other degrees (excluding MD); or any other degrees.

In this cross-sectional study, 241 and 246 randomly selected general and high-impact medical researchers published a median of 2 and 4 first or senior author research or review articles in 2019, respectively. Approximately one-third of the articles across both samples were published in journals that required an APC. The median total APCs per general and high-impact researcher in 2019 was US$191 (£150) and US$2900 (£2274), respectively, with one researcher who may have incurred as much as US$34676 in APCs (£27186). Across both samples, there were no meaningful differences in APCs paid by gender, affiliation or training. However, in the high-impact sample, researchers from the Region of the Americas had a lower median total APCs paid (US$1695) (£1329) than researchers from all other regions (US$4800) (£3763). As open access publishing with APCs becomes increasingly common, it is important to consider the financial implications for individual researchers across different fields, settings and levels of seniority.

Our study suggests that many general and high-impact researchers could have paid thousands of dollars in APCs to publish their first and senior research and review articles in 2019. Across the 487 index researchers in both samples, which represents only a fraction of all biomedical researchers actively publishing in 2019, the total estimated APCs was approximately US$1500000 (£1 176 000). Given that general researchers published a median of 2 first or senior articles per year (potentially in lower impact factor journals with smaller APCs) 40 41 it may not be surprising that the median total APCs per researcher was relatively low (US$191) (£150). However, among high-impact researchers, who published a median of 4 first or senior research or review articles in 2019, the median total APCs per researcher was US$2900 (£2274). This suggests that these researchers paid an APC for one of every four of their first or senior author articles. Moreover, if we extrapolate our findings, individual researchers could spend a total of US$116000 (£90 944) on publication costs over a 40-year career.

It is important to note that there are numerous benefits to open access publishing. Limiting the amount of science that exists behind a paywall can have clear advantages for individual researchers and the public. 42 43 Open access publishing can enhance equity by improving the ability of researchers, either working in low-resource settings or at institutions that cannot support the hefty cost of journal subscriptions, to access publications. 44 45 Articles published open access can receive a citation boost compared with those behind paywalls, a boon for researchers looking to increase the audience and impact of their work. 46 Furthermore, APCs often serve an important purpose in the publication process. APCs can be used to pay the salaries of journal editors, who are often responsible for screening a large number of manuscript submissions, identifying and soliciting appropriate peer-reviewers (and performing their own peer-review), and helping improve the quality of studies as they transition from submission to eventual publication. Moreover, APCs could be used to pay peer reviewers for their efforts—a service currently provided by researchers for free even in cases where researchers are paying thousands of dollars to publish an article. 47 However, if APCs continue to increase, questions will continue to be raised about journals’ potential profit motives, predatory journals and hybrid journals that receive payments from both institutions and researchers.

However, the rise of the APC-centred open access publishing model poses a number of challenges for researchers. 18 48 Approximately one-third of the first or senior research and review articles published by the general and high-impact researchers were published in an open access journal that required an APC. Although not all open access journals charge APCs, approximately 50% of all articles that are published open access are published in journals that do. 42 When grant money or institutional discretionary funds are used to cover APCs, as is the case for approximately 80% researchers in the health, biological and life sciences, 10 fewer resources are available for other research-related expenses. 48 For instance, the US$2900 (£2274) median amount spent by researchers in our high-impact sample could support the attendance of multiple individuals at a conference or a critical piece of research equipment. Moreover, for researchers spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on APCs, these funds could have covered the tuition of a graduate student or the partial salary of a postdoctoral fellow. Second, the amount of APCs has risen dramatically in recent years—at a rate nearly three times that of the expected inflation rate. 13 49 These increases have raised questions about whether APCs actually reflect the cost of publishing or if publishers are driven by primarily financial motives. 9 48 While there does not appear to be a quality difference between subscription-based and open access journals, 5 50 there is some evidence that journals with higher APCs are perceived to be higher impact. 41 50

Lastly, the amount of APCs can enhance existing inequities in publishing by creating an additional barrier to many researchers based on field, 10 seniority, 14 disparities in research funding 15 16 or setting. 18 48 51 For instance, evidence suggests that researchers from countries with gross domestic products (GDPs) lower than US$25000 (£19600) are more likely to pay APCs out of personal funds compared with researchers from countries with GDPs higher than US$25000 (£19600). 10 It is important to note that certain journals grant fee waivers to researchers from low-income and middle-income countries or to researchers without funding to support publication. However, many researchers may be unaware of the specific journals that do provide waivers. 17 Furthermore, journal waivers do not necessarily address all of the inequities imposed by APCs. For early career researchers with no established grant funding or accumulated discretionary funds, even discounted APCs can be beyond available resources.

As open access publishing becomes the norm, numerous opportunities exist to address the disadvantages that may prevent many researchers from paying for APCs. At the journal level, increased transparency may be necessary to inform researchers from low-income and middle-income countries or at early stages of their careers about the waivers that are available. It is also critical that funders and institutions leverage their influence to restrain the hyperinflation of APCs. In 2018, cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funders, launched ‘Plan S’. This initiative, which aims to make all scientific publications resulting from publicly funded research immediately available open access, 52 has proposed an APC fee cap. 49 52 As more scientific research is available open access, institutions can shift resources from subscriptions to a pool of funds to support the expenses for early career researchers. Among universities in the UK, there is an ongoing commitment to promoting open access publishing by encouraging submission to open access repositories and by assisting researchers in the payment of APCs for immediate open access publication. 13 At the funder level, more agencies could embrace the Gates Foundation or the Charity Open Access Fund model used by the Wellcome Trust, where researchers supported by these funders can request coverage of any associated APCs. 53 54 Individual researchers can also increasingly choose to release their research open access through venues such as pre-print servers, like medRxiv, without undermining their ability to publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals. 55 Furthermore, so-called ‘Green Open Access’ policies, where researchers can elect to post peer-reviewed papers in open access repositories, are available for many journals, although most researchers do not use this option. 44 56 57 Scientific publishing is changing and it will be necessary for all stakeholders to adapt.

Limitations of this study

This study is subject to certain limitations. First, we recognise the limitations of classifying authors as ‘general’ or ‘high-impact’ based on one senior author research or review article published in one of the 10 highest impact factor medical journals. Second, our estimates do not represent the actual APCs that the index researchers in our sample paid. Without access to the financial records from the index researchers and journals in our sample, we had to make several assumptions about the nature of APC payments, most fundamentally that it was the index author who paid the APCs, rather than a funder or other organisation. In particular, articles for which the index researcher was a middle author were excluded, as we assumed index researchers are less likely to pay associated APCs as a middle author. We also did not account for situations in which APCs may have been paid by coprimary or cosenior authors. Additionally, we used the most recent APCs listed on journal websites, which may not represent the APCs paid in 2019. For our primary analysis, we assumed that researchers in our sample did not pay the optional APCs for open access publications in hybrid journals. Using publicly available information, it is difficult to determine if open access publications in hybrid journals were paid for by researchers or were available open access due to funder requirements or journal discretion. Furthermore, we did not account for any unlisted discounts or fee waivers provided by journals to researcher institutions in our analyses. Although the true minimum APCs per researcher may be lower than our estimate, our results did not change substantially when analyses were repeated using the lowest APCs listed by journals (excluding waivers). Overall, our sensitivity analyses provide a range of what researchers are likely to have paid.

Third, although Scopus provides a comprehensive accounting of a given researcher’s publication history, not all manuscripts published by a researcher may be indexed on Scopus. Furthermore, Scopus may create multiple researcher profiles for the same researcher, due to changing institutions or different permutations of the researcher’s name. However, we attempted to identify and include all researcher profiles for each index researcher. Second, we relied on articles classified as ‘articles’ or ‘reviews’ on Scopus. Although this method allowed us to objectively screen and classify index researcher articles, it is possible that we may have included or excluded articles that were incorrectly classified by Scopus. Lastly, due to the cross-sectional design of our study, we are unable to establish causal relationships between author characteristics (e.g., region) and potential APCs paid.

This cross-sectional analysis suggests that clinical medical researchers could have paid as much as US$34676 (£27186) in total APCs for their first and senior author research and review articles in 2019. Although the total APCs in this study are estimates, it is important to understand the potential cost of open-access publishing to researchers as journals with APCs become more common. In particular, future studies should evaluate the impact of APCs on individuals who may not have the funding or institutional resources to cover these costs.

Supplementary Material

Twitter: @JoshuaDWallach

Contributors: JDW and JSR first conceived the study idea when arguing about who would have to pay the APC for one of their previous manuscripts. MKE, KN, JSR, and JDW designed this study. MKE, XS and JJS acquired the author, journal, and APC data. MKE conducted the statistical analysis. MKE, JSR and JDW drafted the manuscript. MKE, XS, JJS, KN, RL, JSR and JDW participated in the interpretation of the data and critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content. MKE and JDW had full access to all the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. MKE and JDW are guarantors. JDW provided supervision, and despite being the senior author, begged JSR to pay the APCs.

Funding: The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf and declare: In the past 36 months, XS received a scholarship from China Scholarship Council. JSR is a former Associate Editor of JAMA Internal Medicine, a current Research Editor at BMJ, and has received research support through Yale from Johnson & Johnson to develop methods of clinical trial data sharing, from the FDA to establish a Center for Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI) at Yale University and the Mayo Clinic (U01FD005938), from the Medical Device Innovation Consortium as part of the National Evaluation System for Health Technology (NEST), from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (R01HS022882), from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (R01HS025164, R01HL144644), and from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. JDW received research support through the Collaboration for Research Integrity and Transparency from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation and through the Center for Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI) at Yale University and the Mayo Clinic (U01FD005938).

Patient and public involvement: Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

Patient consent for publication: Not required.

Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Data availability statement: The dataset will be made available via a publicly accessible repository on publication. https://osf.io/f6cwu/

Article Processing Charges

Authors using government research funding or university consortium funding may be required to publish in OA journals. In addition, authors may choose to publish open access to gain the largest possible audience for their innovative practical, applied, and theoretical research.

Similar to most gold open access publications, IEEE open access articles are supported by article processing charges (APCs), rather than through subscriptions. APCs may be paid by the author, the author’s institution, or a funding agency.

APC pricing for the various open access options available from IEEE are listed below.

For details on APC pricing related to IEEE institutional open access agreements, please see your institution’s administrator.

IEEE Article Processing Charges

• For the majority of IEEE’s fully open access journals, the article processing fee will be $1,995 USD. Some exceptions apply for certain titles, see individual journal author instructions for specific details.
• For IEEE Access , the article processing charge is $1,995 USD.
• For hybrid journals, the article processing charge will be $2,495 USD. Please note that some journals charge additional fees (e.g. overlength and color page charges). See individual journal author instructions for specific details.
• For the majority of IEEE magazines offering open access, the article processing fee will be $2,995 USD. Some exceptions apply for certain titles, see individual magazine author instructions for specific details.
• For all other existing IEEE open access publications, please check the individual journal’s author instructions for specific details.
• APCs are based on the article submission date to the IEEE publication.
• Local taxes will also be added if applicable.

Member Discounts

• Members of IEEE societies or councils are eligible to receive a 20% discount on APCs.
• IEEE members who are not members of individual IEEE societies or councils are eligible to receive a 5% discount on APCs.

Discounts do not apply to undergraduate and graduate students. Discounts cannot be combined or applied to any other fees such as overlength or color page charges.

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How to Write a Research Paper | A Beginner's Guide

A research paper is a piece of academic writing that provides analysis, interpretation, and argument based on in-depth independent research.

Research papers are similar to academic essays , but they are usually longer and more detailed assignments, designed to assess not only your writing skills but also your skills in scholarly research. Writing a research paper requires you to demonstrate a strong knowledge of your topic, engage with a variety of sources, and make an original contribution to the debate.

This step-by-step guide takes you through the entire writing process, from understanding your assignment to proofreading your final draft.

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Table of contents

Understand the assignment, choose a research paper topic, conduct preliminary research, develop a thesis statement, create a research paper outline, write a first draft of the research paper, write the introduction, write a compelling body of text, write the conclusion, the second draft, the revision process, research paper checklist, free lecture slides.

Completing a research paper successfully means accomplishing the specific tasks set out for you. Before you start, make sure you thoroughly understanding the assignment task sheet:

• Read it carefully, looking for anything confusing you might need to clarify with your professor.
• Identify the assignment goal, deadline, length specifications, formatting, and submission method.
• Make a bulleted list of the key points, then go back and cross completed items off as you’re writing.

Carefully consider your timeframe and word limit: be realistic, and plan enough time to research, write, and edit.

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There are many ways to generate an idea for a research paper, from brainstorming with pen and paper to talking it through with a fellow student or professor.

You can try free writing, which involves taking a broad topic and writing continuously for two or three minutes to identify absolutely anything relevant that could be interesting.

You can also gain inspiration from other research. The discussion or recommendations sections of research papers often include ideas for other specific topics that require further examination.

Once you have a broad subject area, narrow it down to choose a topic that interests you, m eets the criteria of your assignment, and i s possible to research. Aim for ideas that are both original and specific:

• A paper following the chronology of World War II would not be original or specific enough.
• A paper on the experience of Danish citizens living close to the German border during World War II would be specific and could be original enough.

Note any discussions that seem important to the topic, and try to find an issue that you can focus your paper around. Use a variety of sources , including journals, books, and reliable websites, to ensure you do not miss anything glaring.

Do not only verify the ideas you have in mind, but look for sources that contradict your point of view.

• Is there anything people seem to overlook in the sources you research?
• Are there any heated debates you can address?
• Do you have a unique take on your topic?
• Have there been some recent developments that build on the extant research?

In this stage, you might find it helpful to formulate some research questions to help guide you. To write research questions, try to finish the following sentence: “I want to know how/what/why…”

A thesis statement is a statement of your central argument — it establishes the purpose and position of your paper. If you started with a research question, the thesis statement should answer it. It should also show what evidence and reasoning you’ll use to support that answer.

The thesis statement should be concise, contentious, and coherent. That means it should briefly summarize your argument in a sentence or two, make a claim that requires further evidence or analysis, and make a coherent point that relates to every part of the paper.

You will probably revise and refine the thesis statement as you do more research, but it can serve as a guide throughout the writing process. Every paragraph should aim to support and develop this central claim.

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A research paper outline is essentially a list of the key topics, arguments, and evidence you want to include, divided into sections with headings so that you know roughly what the paper will look like before you start writing.

A structure outline can help make the writing process much more efficient, so it’s worth dedicating some time to create one.

Your first draft won’t be perfect — you can polish later on. Your priorities at this stage are as follows:

• Maintaining forward momentum — write now, perfect later.
• Paying attention to clear organization and logical ordering of paragraphs and sentences, which will help when you come to the second draft.
• Expressing your ideas as clearly as possible, so you know what you were trying to say when you come back to the text.

You do not need to start by writing the introduction. Begin where it feels most natural for you — some prefer to finish the most difficult sections first, while others choose to start with the easiest part. If you created an outline, use it as a map while you work.

Do not delete large sections of text. If you begin to dislike something you have written or find it doesn’t quite fit, move it to a different document, but don’t lose it completely — you never know if it might come in useful later.

Paragraph structure

Paragraphs are the basic building blocks of research papers. Each one should focus on a single claim or idea that helps to establish the overall argument or purpose of the paper.

Example paragraph

George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” has had an enduring impact on thought about the relationship between politics and language. This impact is particularly obvious in light of the various critical review articles that have recently referenced the essay. For example, consider Mark Falcoff’s 2009 article in The National Review Online, “The Perversion of Language; or, Orwell Revisited,” in which he analyzes several common words (“activist,” “civil-rights leader,” “diversity,” and more). Falcoff’s close analysis of the ambiguity built into political language intentionally mirrors Orwell’s own point-by-point analysis of the political language of his day. Even 63 years after its publication, Orwell’s essay is emulated by contemporary thinkers.

Citing sources

It’s also important to keep track of citations at this stage to avoid accidental plagiarism . Each time you use a source, make sure to take note of where the information came from.

You can use our free citation generators to automatically create citations and save your reference list as you go.

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The research paper introduction should address three questions: What, why, and how? After finishing the introduction, the reader should know what the paper is about, why it is worth reading, and how you’ll build your arguments.

What? Be specific about the topic of the paper, introduce the background, and define key terms or concepts.

Why? This is the most important, but also the most difficult, part of the introduction. Try to provide brief answers to the following questions: What new material or insight are you offering? What important issues does your essay help define or answer?

How? To let the reader know what to expect from the rest of the paper, the introduction should include a “map” of what will be discussed, briefly presenting the key elements of the paper in chronological order.

The major struggle faced by most writers is how to organize the information presented in the paper, which is one reason an outline is so useful. However, remember that the outline is only a guide and, when writing, you can be flexible with the order in which the information and arguments are presented.

One way to stay on track is to use your thesis statement and topic sentences . Check:

• topic sentences against the thesis statement;
• topic sentences against each other, for similarities and logical ordering;
• and each sentence against the topic sentence of that paragraph.

Be aware of paragraphs that seem to cover the same things. If two paragraphs discuss something similar, they must approach that topic in different ways. Aim to create smooth transitions between sentences, paragraphs, and sections.

The research paper conclusion is designed to help your reader out of the paper’s argument, giving them a sense of finality.

Trace the course of the paper, emphasizing how it all comes together to prove your thesis statement. Give the paper a sense of finality by making sure the reader understands how you’ve settled the issues raised in the introduction.

You might also discuss the more general consequences of the argument, outline what the paper offers to future students of the topic, and suggest any questions the paper’s argument raises but cannot or does not try to answer.

You should not :

• Offer new arguments or essential information
• Take up any more space than necessary
• Begin with stock phrases that signal you are ending the paper (e.g. “In conclusion”)

There are four main considerations when it comes to the second draft.

• Check how your vision of the paper lines up with the first draft and, more importantly, that your paper still answers the assignment.
• Identify any assumptions that might require (more substantial) justification, keeping your reader’s perspective foremost in mind. Remove these points if you cannot substantiate them further.
• Be open to rearranging your ideas. Check whether any sections feel out of place and whether your ideas could be better organized.
• If you find that old ideas do not fit as well as you anticipated, you should cut them out or condense them. You might also find that new and well-suited ideas occurred to you during the writing of the first draft — now is the time to make them part of the paper.

The goal during the revision and proofreading process is to ensure you have completed all the necessary tasks and that the paper is as well-articulated as possible. You can speed up the proofreading process by using the AI proofreader .

Global concerns

• Confirm that your paper completes every task specified in your assignment sheet.
• Check for logical organization and flow of paragraphs.
• Check paragraphs against the introduction and thesis statement.

Fine-grained details

Check the content of each paragraph, making sure that:

• each sentence helps support the topic sentence.
• no unnecessary or irrelevant information is present.
• all technical terms your audience might not know are identified.

Next, think about sentence structure , grammatical errors, and formatting . Check that you have correctly used transition words and phrases to show the connections between your ideas. Look for typos, cut unnecessary words, and check for consistency in aspects such as heading formatting and spellings .

Finally, you need to make sure your paper is correctly formatted according to the rules of the citation style you are using. For example, you might need to include an MLA heading  or create an APA title page .

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Checklist: Research paper

I have followed all instructions in the assignment sheet.

My introduction presents my topic in an engaging way and provides necessary background information.

My introduction presents a clear, focused research problem and/or thesis statement .

My paper is logically organized using paragraphs and (if relevant) section headings .

Each paragraph is clearly focused on one central idea, expressed in a clear topic sentence .

Each paragraph is relevant to my research problem or thesis statement.

I have used appropriate transitions  to clarify the connections between sections, paragraphs, and sentences.

My conclusion provides a concise answer to the research question or emphasizes how the thesis has been supported.

My conclusion shows how my research has contributed to knowledge or understanding of my topic.

My conclusion does not present any new points or information essential to my argument.

I have provided an in-text citation every time I refer to ideas or information from a source.

I have included a reference list at the end of my paper, consistently formatted according to a specific citation style .

I have thoroughly revised my paper and addressed any feedback from my professor or supervisor.

I have followed all formatting guidelines (page numbers, headers, spacing, etc.).

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How Scientific Research Gets Published

It might seem mysterious, but the process of getting scientific results to become scientific papers straightforward ... but needs some improvements..

Scientific research! No, it isn't just a bunch of folks in lab coats shouting "eureka!" and then getting handed a Nobel Prize. Lots of scientific research gets done these days in the United States alone. This work is being done by a widely diverse (but maybe not diverse enough) group of people at universities, labs, companies, you name it. In fact, the average scientist likely spends more time writing than "doing" research. The process to go from research to publication is not well known by most of the public, so let's demystify it!

First off, let's get a few things straight

1. Accepted scientific research has been peer-reviewed . This means that scientists independent of the research have vetted and commented on the work and the paper that was written about the work. This is why publication in a peer-reviewed journal or book is the gold standard ... and why random people on the internet claiming grand scientific discoveries (like earthquake prediction) without submitting it to peer review should be handled extremely skeptically.

2. No person is an island. Very little modern scientific research is done by one person. Research is done by teams and collaborations because, in the end, it tends to produce better, more thorough results.

3. Published papers are not the end of the line. So, you published your results! This doesn't mean that the research is done. You or anyone can take the baton and run with it, possibly overturning your results. That's ok! That's part of science. However, if your results are solid, then they should start the test of further research. Most science is a theory, so it is just an idea with evidence for how the some part of the universe works.

Creating the Manuscript

Let's get into the nuts and bolts. The process of publishing scientific research starts with results. For some fields, it might be from experiments. In others, it might be field observations. In others, it might be laboratory analyses. In many cases, it is a combination of these with a dollop of data from other researchers. You need to take all these data and make sense of them, either through statistical analyses or comparisons to known results or theoretical modeling.

Once you've built your explanation for your data, you actually need to write the manuscript. I'm not going to get into the gory details, but manuscripts can vary from a few pages to tens of pages depending on the results and your chosen venue to attempt to publish. You'll likely have to make some figures and tables as well. For most scientists, you are doing this all yourself! In many ways, you have to become your own desktop publisher.

Unless you are in the small minority without collaborators, you are likely working together with others on the manuscript. They might write parts of it, analyse the data, offer content. Authorship has different roles in different disciplines. For me, my coauthors tends to be active collaborators, people who played significant roles in the data collecting, or students who worked on the project. In the end, all these people likely get to examine and comment on the manuscript before it heads to a journal.

Picking your Venue

And journals ... there are so many of them! Some are big for all of science, like Nature and Science . Others are for specific disciplines like Geology or Earth & Planetary Science Letters . Still others are much more specific to sub-disciplines, like the Journal of Volcanology & Geothermal Research . There are also journals for specific geographic regions, for applications of research to teaching and many more. It can be challenging to decide where to submit and there are lots of sketchy, predatory publishers out there as well (more on that later).

Once you've decided what journal, you need to get your manuscript into their formatting. This might mean specific fonts, reference styles (you need to credit the previous papers when you use their information or ideas), image sizes, data appendices and more. This, again, is like being your own publishing firm. It takes time.

How much time? Well, depending on how quickly you write and how quickly your collaborators respond, the average manuscript might take months to years to come together. And that is just from inception to submission ... in a sense, the journey is just beginning.

So, You've Submitted a Manuscript

OK, so you've submitted the manuscript to the Journal of Awesome Earth Science . The journal has decided that your paper meets their criteria for potential publication based on the novel nature of the work or the field of research. What's next? Usually, an associate editor (usually a volunteer from the discipline community) gets assigned the manuscript and they need to find reviewers (also volunteers).

Most journals let authors suggest some (and nix others), but the associate editor might reach out to experts in the field to review. Usually, the review process is supposed to take a few weeks, but more likely it might take a few months (remember, everyone is volunteering). Much of the time, the authors never find out who the reviewers were unless the reviewers specifically say they can be identified.

Once the associate editor gets the comments and recommendations from the reviewers, they need to decide what to report to the authors. Usually, there are four(ish) tiers: accept, accept with minor revisions, major revisions and reject. If your manuscript is rejected it is typically because it was poorly written or the data and interpretation didn't hold up to examination by your peers (the reviewers).

"Major revisions" means that the reviewers seem something of value, but think the manuscript needs work and may need to go through review again before acceptance. "Minor revisions" means that the manuscript has a few things to fix, but after that, it should be good to publish.

So, it's back to the authors! If you weren't rejected (and getting rejected happens, especially if you are submitting to a top level journal like Science or Nature), then you likely need to revise. That might take a few weeks to months. When you resubmit the revisions, you need to provide a point by point response to the reviewers comments, explaining how you fixed things (or chose not to fix). All of this gets sent back to the associate editor to decide the manuscript's fate.

The associate editor will then make a recommendation that will likely need to be approved by the main editor for the journal. If they give it the OK, then it heads to the folks who will give it a stern copyedit and start to format it for publication (print, online or both). This might take another few weeks. Usually, after the copyedit, the manuscript-now-paper can exist as a "pre-print" that hasn't been formatted for the journal but might be available for "early access".

Publishing Costs Money

Now, here is the rub. Guess how much scientists get paid by publishers to publish their work? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. In fact, most of the time researchers have to pay the publisher to publish the manuscript and if you want it to be open access, you really have to pay. We're talking hundreds to thousands of dollars just to get your work out to the community.

And remember what else I said? The editors and reviewers are volunteers, too! So there is a huge amount of work that most publishers get for free. There are a handful of journals that don't work in those models, but many of the big, fancy journals are put out by for-profit (and very profitable at that) publishers like Elsevier or Wiley.

The publishers then turn around and charge libraries for subscriptions (print and(or) digital, with those being in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Without those institutional subscriptions, many scientists wouldn't have access to all the published research out there.

That leads to problems in access and equity. If only those who are at institutions that can afford subscriptions have access, what does that do to the scientific community as a whole? And if scientists are donating all this time to publishers, why can they get away with charging so much to both the producers and consumers of research?

How to Change the System

In the end, many scientists are judged by the quality, quantity or both of their research. This means that getting tenure, getting promotions, salaries and more are based on working in this model. If that seems problematic to you, well, you're right to think that. Scientists are beholden to a system that is scientifically rigorous but financially imbalanced for the most part.

Most researchers are just excited to get their work out there. We love discovery! We love trying to understand our world better and then share that with other scientists and the public. The process of peer-reviewed publication can take years and cost thousands of dollars, but many millions of papers are published each year across the natural sciences alone. A more equitable and open version of this is needed, but how this cycle is change depends on scientists and universities to look at what is means to be a successful researcher in a new light.

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How much does it cost to publish a paper in a journal

Publication Plays an important role in every researcher’s carrier. if you are a Ph.D. student or doing your master’s or bachelor’s, then as per the University norms, you need to publish your research paper in a good journal. Here in this article, we are going to discuss How much does it cost to publish a paper in a journal .

How much does it cost to publish a paper in a journal?

Before proceeding let us discuss how the Journal operates and its finances. As we know that every organization and institution needs the funds to operate. The Journal publication organization has some costs to operate.

To operate the publication most journal publishers follows the two type of model of publication

1. Open access Method

2. Subscription-based method.

Publication model of Scholarly Journals

The subscription-based model is a very old model and many publishers adopted this for many years now. But the Open access model is new to the world and becoming popular very rapidly.

So, let us understand why is it getting popular so fast?

In the Subscription-based model if any reader wants to read the published article then he/she has to pay some charges to download the paper or to read the paper for future research.

But in case of open access , the readers can download, read and cite the paper completely free. So the readers and researchers prefer the articles which do not cost them. Due to this, the Open Access model is getting popular.

Now there are two types of models in which the journals that publish the paper from authors can have an income. 

As we discussed now The first model is known as the open-access model . In this model, the author of the paper has to pay the publication fees. But now some publishers do not use the Subscription-based model rather they call it Green Open access .

Let us understand what is Gold Open Access and Green Open Access Journals

Must read: How to publish a paper in International Journal

Gold open access

According to Elsevier in this model of publication, the journal article will be freely available for everyone after publication. The publishing costs are covered by the author or by their institution/funding body/society on their behalf, typically in the form of an Article Publishing Charge (APC) or other types of fees.

Elsevier’s APCs range between   $150 and c$6000 US Dollars excluding tax, depending on the journal, with prices clearly displayed on the Article Publishing Charge (APC) price list and on journal homepages. Other than these journals you can find journals that charge between 20 USD and to 200USD if it’s a Peer review journals.

Other Publishers like Springer nature, Willey, IEEE, and Hindawi also followed the same.

Must read: How to know if a journal is indexed

Green open access

In this model, the authors do not need to pay any additional charges for the publication. The publication costs are covered by subscriptions. The reader will pay when he/she wants to download the paper and read it.

Refer to Elsevier Open access policy here

Check here the Springer’s Open access policy here

IEEE Publication charges

Here is the tentative cost to publish a paper in a journal

SCI Indexed Journal: 500USd to 6000USD per article

Scopus Indexed Journal: 200USD to 1500USD per article

Web of Science Indexed Journal: 200USD to 1500USD per article

ABDC Indexed Journal: 200USD to 1000USD per article

Peer reviewed and Google Scholar Indexed Journals: 20 USD to 300USD per article

UGC Care(for India only-Group-1)listed Journal: 50USD to 300USD per article

Other reputed Indexing like Pubmed, IJIFACTOR, GARUDA, DOAJ, EI Compemdex, CNIK Indexed Journal: 100USD to 1000USD per article.

Why is open access so expensive?

Because of the Publication cost, Open access journals are expensive. But it’s now it is widely accepted that the Open access journal is the future of the publication . The researchers love to read the journal article available freely and cite them.

What is the problem with open access?

Generally, people consider the journals which charge APC from authors during publication are fake journals or predatory journals. But that is not true people should understand that the journals that are publishing their papers need some source of income to sustain the journal and to maintain the journal quality.

As here the author needs to pay before publication some people think it’s easy to pay and publish. But it’s not true.  There might be some predatory journals that take money to publish but most Journal publishers follow the Global standard of Journal publication. You need to find good journals to publish your research paper.

To know more about the publication fees of any organization and institution one should always visit the website of that organization.

Must read: How to search Scopus indexed journals

Is it good to publish in open-access journals?

Absolutely yes!! As we discussed earlier in this article the researchers love to read the articles which available freely. So, the chance of getting a higher impact on your paper after publication. Most reputed Journal publishers are now having Gold open-access Journal publications. This means they charge APC from the author to get the paper published.

Here is the list you can check

• Elsevier: https://www.elsevier.com/open-access/open-access-journals
• Springer Nature: https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-research/journals-books
• Willey:   https://authorservices.wiley.com/open-research/open-access/browse-journals.html
• Frontiersin : https://www.frontiersin.org/
• MDPI: https://www.mdpi.com/
• Cambridge: https://www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/open-access
• Hindawi : https://www.hindawi.com/journals/
• IEEE: https://open.ieee.org

Related Posts

How to publish in Scopus indexed journal

5 Best tips for choosing the right Journal

How to publish a paper in International Journal

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Research on sustainable green building space design model integrating IoT technology

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Resources, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected] , [email protected]

Affiliations College of Art, Shandong Management University, Jinan, Shandong, China, Shandong Architectural Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd., Jinan, Shandong, China

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Shandong Architectural Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd., Jinan, Shandong, China

• Yuchen Wang, 

• Published: April 29, 2024
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298982
• Reader Comments

"How can the integration of Internet of Things (IoT) technology enhance the sustainability and efficiency of green building (G.B.) design?" is the central research question that this study attempts to answer. This investigation is important because it examines how green building and IoT technology can work together. It also provides important information about how to use contemporary technologies for environmental sustainability in the building sector. The paper examines a range of IoT applications in green buildings, focusing on this intersection. These applications include energy monitoring, occupant engagement, smart building automation, predictive maintenance, renewable energy integration, and data analytics for energy efficiency enhancements. The objective is to create a thorough and sustainable model for designing green building spaces that successfully incorporates IoT, offering industry professionals cutting-edge solutions and practical advice. The study uses a mixed-methods approach, integrating quantitative data analysis with qualitative case studies and literature reviews. It evaluates how IoT can improve energy management, indoor environmental quality, and resource optimization in diverse geographic contexts. The findings show that there has been a noticeable improvement in waste reduction, energy and water efficiency, and the upkeep of high-quality indoor environments after IoT integration. This study fills a major gap in the literature by offering a comprehensive model for IoT integration in green building design, which indicates its impact. This model positions IoT as a critical element in advancing sustainable urban development and offers a ground-breaking framework for the practical application of IoT in sustainable building practices. It also emphasizes the need for customized IoT solutions in green buildings. The paper identifies future research directions, including the investigation of advanced IoT applications in renewable energy and the evaluation of IoT’s impact on occupant behavior and well-being, along with addressing cybersecurity concerns. It acknowledges the challenges associated with IoT implementation, such as the initial costs and specialized skills needed.

Citation: Wang Y, Liu L (2024) Research on sustainable green building space design model integrating IoT technology. PLoS ONE 19(4): e0298982. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298982

Editor: Sathishkumar Veerappampalayam Easwaramoorthy, Sunway University, MALAYSIA

Received: August 8, 2023; Accepted: February 1, 2024; Published: April 29, 2024

Copyright: © 2024 Wang, Liu. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

1. Introduction

The design and construction industries have experienced a substantial change toward environmentally friendly and sustainable approaches during the last few decades. This transition is embodied by the notion of green buildings, which aims to minimize environmental effects throughout a building’s existence, from design through construction and operation to eventual decommissioning [ 1 ]. Green Building (G.B.) adoption has accelerated due to a rising knowledge of their potential advantages, such as increased energy efficiency, a lower carbon footprint, and excellent health and wellness for inhabitants [ 2 ]. Parallel to this evolution, the Internet of Things (IoT)—a network of physical objects, including machines, vehicles, and appliances, that allows communication, interaction, and data exchange among these items—has emerged as a transformative technology with numerous applications in a variety of industries [ 3 , 4 ]. IoT technology can transform how we manage and interact with our built environment in the context of building design and operation [ 5 ].

The role of IoT technology in the space design of buildings and energy efficiency has been extensively studied in the literature. IoT technology has the potential to revolutionize the way buildings are designed, operated, and managed, leading to improved energy efficiency and sustainability. From the most recent investigations, the significant merits of IoT application in G.B. design can be drawn as follows.

• Smart Building Automation: IoT integrates various building systems, such as lighting, HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning), and security, into a unified network. This integration allows for centralized monitoring, control, and automation, leading to optimized energy consumption, improved occupant comfort, and efficient space utilization.
• Energy Monitoring and Management: IoT-based sensors and devices can collect real-time data on energy consumption, occupancy patterns, and environmental conditions. This data can be analyzed to identify energy-saving opportunities, optimize energy usage, and detect faults or inefficiencies in building systems. Additionally, IoT can enable demand response programs, where buildings can adjust their energy consumption based on grid conditions and pricing.
• Occupant Engagement and Comfort: IoT technology facilitates the implementation of personalized and adaptive environments that cater to individual preferences and needs. Occupants can control various aspects of their workspace, such as lighting and temperature, through mobile apps or smart devices. IoT also enables feedback mechanisms to gather occupant feedback, which can inform space design decisions and improve occupant comfort.
• Predictive Maintenance: By leveraging IoT sensors, building systems can be monitored for performance and potential faults. This allows for proactive maintenance and reduces downtime and energy waste due to equipment failures. Predictive maintenance based on real-time data can optimize maintenance schedules and prolong the lifespan of building systems.
• Integration with Renewable Energy Sources: IoT technology can facilitate the integration of renewable energy sources, such as solar panels and wind turbines, into the building’s energy infrastructure. Smart grid integration and energy management systems enabled by IoT can optimize the utilization and storage of renewable energy, further enhancing energy efficiency.
• Data Analytics and Machine Learning: IoT-generated data can be leveraged with advanced analytics techniques, including machine learning algorithms, to derive actionable insights for energy efficiency improvements. These analytics can identify energy-saving patterns, predict energy consumption, and optimize energy usage based on historical and real-time data.

Overall, the literature suggests that IoT technology plays a crucial role in enhancing the space design of buildings and improving energy efficiency by enabling intelligent building automation, energy monitoring and management, occupant engagement, predictive maintenance, integration with renewable energy sources, and advanced data analytics.

Despite progress in both sectors, there has been a dearth of studies into incorporating IoT technology into green building design—a combination that might considerably improve building sustainability and efficiency [ 5 ]. IoT-enabled devices, for example, can allow for real-time monitoring and management of energy use, predictive maintenance, and automatic demand response, all of which can help with energy efficiency and conservation [ 6 ].

Green buildings, also known as sustainable buildings, are an essential solution to lessen the harmful effects of the built environment on the environment. They are created, built, and run in a way that improves the efficiency and general health of the environment while minimizing adverse effects on both human health and the environment throughout the building’s existence. Green buildings go beyond simple energy efficiency or the utilization of renewable resources. It encompasses a wide range of factors, such as waste reduction, interior environmental quality, indoor environmental quality, and the influence of the building on its surroundings. Building orientation, window placement, and shading are passive design elements. Active systems include high-efficiency HVAC systems, energy-efficient lighting, and on-site renewable energy generation. Energy efficiency is still central to green building design [ 7 ].

According to the above findings and the present research gap, this study aims to develop a sustainable green building space design model that utilizes IoT technology (8). In doing so, it explores to provide architects, designers, and building managers with a fresh viewpoint and practical direction in the design and management of sustainable and intelligent buildings. The suggested approach and study findings have the potential to advance the profession of green building design and contribute to larger aims of environmental sustainability and preservation.

The primary goals of this research are as follows: Understanding the importance of IoT in sustainable green building design, which entails investigating various uses of IoT technology to improve the sustainability of building designs, such as energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and overall environmental effect and creating an integrated IoT and green building design model that takes into account variables like building orientation, material selection, interior environmental quality, energy management, and waste reduction. Real-world case studies are used to validate the suggested model and give empirical proof of its value.

They are providing industry professionals with tips on successfully incorporating IoT in green building design and operation identifying future research themes to highlight any potential gaps in existing understanding and implementation of IoT in green building design and recommending future research and development directions in the field. Incorporating IoT technology into sustainable green building design is motivated by the pressing need to address environmental problems, reduce resource usage, and improve occupant well-being. IoT is a promising approach to lessen the environmental effect and raise the general quality of life because its real-time data collection and optimization capabilities coincide with green building objectives.

2. Related works: Overview of G.B. and IoT

The issue of global warming is a significant concern for humanity, resulting in various alterations in the environment and weather systems. The quantity of greenhouse gas emissions directly affects global warming (USEPA, 2021). Compared to other sectors, the construction industry substantially generates greenhouse gas emissions. In the European Union, the construction industry is responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions (European Commission, 2021). According to the International Energy Agency (International Energy Agency, 2021), the construction industry ranks first among other sectors in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 35% of total energy consumption and 38% of total CO 2 emissions. Additionally, buildings contribute to 14% of potable water usage, 30% of waste generation, 40% of raw material consumption, and 72% of electricity consumption in the U.S. (Bergman, 2013). Furthermore, it is worth noting that 75% of buildings in the E.U. are energy-inefficient (European Commission, 2021). Researchers have identified green buildings (G.B.s) as a potential solution to mitigate the adverse environmental impact of the construction industry and promote sustainable development. G.B.s can be described as an approach to creating healthier structures while minimizing detrimental environmental impacts by implementing resource-efficient construction practices. Compared to traditional buildings, G.B.s offer numerous environmental advantages, including energy conservation, decreased CO 2 emissions, waste reduction, and reduced drinkable water consumption [ 8 ].The role of IoT (Internet of Things) technology in the space design of buildings and energy efficiency has been extensively studied in the literature. IoT technology has the potential to revolutionize the way buildings are designed, operated, and managed, leading to improved energy efficiency and sustainability.

Another important consideration is water efficiency. Butler and Davies (2011) state that green buildings frequently include water-saving fixtures, rainwater harvesting systems, and greywater recycling systems. Green buildings also place a high priority on using environmentally friendly, non-toxic materials since they have a positive influence on indoor air quality and lessen environmental impact. Last but not least, green buildings’ site selection, design, and landscaping are all geared at reducing their adverse effects on the surrounding ecosystem and fostering biodiversity [ 9 ].

Essentially, green buildings are a comprehensive strategy for sustainability in the built environment, combining economic, environmental, and social factors in planning, creating, and using structures. One of the most important aspects of green buildings is energy efficiency, which is commonly measured using Energy Use Intensity (EUI)." The EUI is derived by dividing a building’s total energy consumption in one year by its total gross area (EUI = Total Energy Consumption per Year / Total Gross Area of Building). Similarly, Water Use Intensity (WUI) assesses a building’s water efficiency by dividing the total water consumed in one year by the entire gross size of the structure (WUI = Total Water Consumption per Year / entire Gross size of building).

Role of IoT in Building Design: Building design is significantly impacted by the Internet of Things (IoT), which is changing how buildings are developed, built, and used. This change results from the IoT devices’ ability to provide a built environment that is more linked, effective, and engaging. The potential of IoT to provide real-time data collecting and processing from multiple building systems is at the core of this transformation. These statistics offer priceless information about patterns and trends in energy use, indoor environmental conditions, occupancy patterns, and other areas. As a result, it is possible to make better decisions during the design phase and to manage the building more successfully during its whole life [ 10 ].

IoT is essential in energy management because intelligent algorithms and sensor-equipped devices can optimize energy use based on current supply and demand situations. According to Morandi et al. (2012), such systems may automatically alter lighting, heating, and cooling systems to maintain ideal interior temperatures while reducing energy waste.

Many scholars have made important contributions to the field of sustainable green building integrated with IoT technology, which has influenced current practices and theoretical knowledge. For example, Smith et al. (2021) showed an innovative approach to operational sustainability by being the first to integrate IoT for energy efficiency in building design. Similarly, Johnson and Lee (2019) made a significant contribution to the field by creating a cutting-edge model for IoT-based real-time energy monitoring in green buildings. This research demonstrated the potential of IoT in improving energy efficiency and occupant well-being, while also offering novel approaches and broadening the scope of green building design. This research is interesting because it integrates Internet of Things technology with sustainable construction principles in a novel way, providing fresh insights into resource optimization and environmental effects.

IoT also supports the shift to design focused more on the user. Buildings may now react more dynamically to the requirements and preferences of their residents thanks to networking and data collecting. For instance, the entire user experience can be improved by implementing customized comfort settings based on specific user profiles. Table 1 presents a global standard of IoT technology. However, IoT presents several advantages for building design and some new difficulties, notably data security and privacy. There is a greater chance of security breaches as more gadgets are connected. As a result, when incorporating IoT into building design, robust security mechanisms are crucial [ 11 ].

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298982.t001

3. Research organization

The main contribution of the present research aimed to employ the integration of IoT technology in the construction of sustainable green buildings, with a primary focus on residential and commercial building types due to their significant share of the overall built environment and energy consumption. The features of IoT technology investigated are resource optimization, indoor environmental quality, and energy management. Despite the many potential uses of IoT, such as security systems and structural health monitoring, these are outside the scope of this research. Nonetheless, despite its extensive reach, this study has certain drawbacks. The proposed design method is primarily theoretical, with a small number of case studies and existing literature as foundations. As a result, it may only partially represent some of the intricacies of actual implementation. Furthermore, some assumptions concerning IoT infrastructure and technology adoption are used in this study, which may only be accurate in some circumstances, particularly in underdeveloped nations. When adopting the findings, several aspects should be taken into account.

3.1. Green building space design models and IoT

Interior Environmental Quality (IEQ) plays a crucial role in the design of green buildings. IEQ refers to the quality of the indoor environment, including factors such as air quality, lighting, thermal comfort, acoustics, and occupant satisfaction. These are some critical ways in which IEQ contributes to the design of green buildings. (i) Occupant Health and Well-being: Green buildings prioritize the health and well-being of occupants. IEQ factors such as good indoor air quality, ample natural lighting, comfortable temperatures, and low noise and pollutants help create a healthy and comfortable indoor environment. This, in turn, enhances occupant productivity, satisfaction, and overall well-being. CO2 Monitoring : IoT sensors measure indoor CO2. Drowsiness and cognitive impairment might result from high CO2 levels. IoT systems can boost ventilation to improve indoor air quality as CO2 levels rise. (ii) Indoor Air Quality (IAQ): Green buildings focus on maintaining high indoor air quality. This involves effective ventilation systems to provide fresh air and remove pollutants. Strategies such as air filtration, use of low-emitting materials, and proper maintenance practices minimize the presence of allergens, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and other indoor pollutants, ensuring healthier air for occupants.

Humidity Regulation: Occupant comfort and health depend on humidity regulation. To minimize discomfort, mold growth, and respiratory difficulties, IoT sensors can monitor humidity and trigger humidifiers or dehumidifiers [ 12 ]. (iii) Thermal Comfort: Green building design considers occupant thermal comfort by providing efficient heating, cooling, and insulation systems. Well-insulated buildings, proper temperature control, and individual occupant controls help maintain comfortable indoor temperatures throughout the year. IoT sensors monitor home temperatures and modify HVAC systems. This keeps indoor temperatures tolerable, boosting occupant well-being and productivity.

This reduces energy consumption and enhances occupant satisfaction. (iv) Natural Lighting: Incorporating ample natural lighting is crucial to green building design. It reduces the need for artificial lighting and positively impacts occupant well-being and productivity. Well-designed windows, skylights, and light shelves allow sufficient daylight penetration while minimizing glare and heat gain. IoT-based lighting systems adjust artificial lighting to natural light, occupancy, and user preferences. This saves energy and makes indoor spaces bright and comfortable.

(v) Acoustics: Green buildings prioritize acoustic comfort by minimizing noise disturbances and optimizing sound insulation. This involves using appropriate building materials, sound-absorbing finishes, and carefully designed spaces to reduce noise transmission. Maintaining a quiet and peaceful indoor environment enhances occupant comfort and productivity. (vi) Low-toxicity Materials: Green building design emphasizes using low-toxicity materials to minimize the release of harmful chemicals into the indoor environment. Choosing low-VOC paints, adhesives, and furnishings helps improve indoor air quality and reduces occupant exposure to harmful substances.

(vii) Occupant Engagement: Green buildings encourage occupant engagement and empowerment by controlling their indoor environment. Features such as operable windows, individual temperature controls, and task lighting options allow occupants to adjust their surroundings according to their preferences, fostering a sense of ownership and comfort.

Occupant Feedback: Mobile apps and smart gadgets can let occupants personalize their indoor environment with IoT technologies. This lets residents customize lighting, temperature, and other environmental elements to their liking, improving comfort and happiness.

Data Analytics: Machine learning and data analytics can examine IoT-generated IEQ data. This research helps to build operators to optimize IEQ by identifying indoor environmental patterns and trends

Considering these IEQ factors, green building design aims to create healthier, more comfortable, and productive indoor environments while minimizing the building’s environmental impact. Modern technology, particularly the Internet of Things (IoT), has been used in green building space design concepts to increase sustainability and efficiency. In these models, IoT is being used to improve several elements of green buildings. Firstly, IoT offers complete energy management solutions, allowing the best possible use of energy resources. Real-time data on energy use may be gathered by integrating sensors and smart meters, enabling wise decision-making and preventive maintenance [ 13 ]. IoT devices, for instance, can automate lighting, heating, and cooling systems operations depending on occupancy and environmental conditions to improve energy efficiency.

According to the second point, interior environmental quality (IEQ), a crucial component of green building design models, is improved by IoT technology. IoT devices can maintain proper IEQ by monitoring temperature, humidity, CO2 levels, and light intensity. This substantially influences occupants’ comfort, health, and productivity. In green buildings, IoT also makes water management more effortless. Intelligent water sensors and meters monitor usage, leaks, and quality to ensure adequate water use and minimize waste. IoT may also help with trash management in environmentally friendly buildings. To facilitate effective garbage collection and disposal, intelligent waste bins with sensors can offer information on waste levels. Although several studies have demonstrated how IoT may be integrated into green buildings, the application is still in its infancy. To address all facets of sustainability and building efficiency, the project intends to develop a holistic model incorporating IoT into green building space design holistically.

3.1.1. A comparative analysis of the current publications on this subject.

Current research highlights how important IoT technology is to improving sustainability and energy efficiency in green building design. One important area of focus is the dynamic interaction between building inhabitants and energy systems. Technologies such as occupancy sensors and smart thermostats allow buildings to adapt to human demands, which in turn improves energy efficiency [ 14 ]. According to Lyu et al. [ 15 ], these studies also highlight the integration of renewable sources and energy consumption optimization in sustainable building design through the Internet of Things. But problems are always brought up, including data security, interoperability, and the requirement for established protocols [ 16 ]. This research shows that although studies acknowledge the potential of IoT in green building design, there are differences in the emphasis and depth of discussion on certain issues such as sustainability, energy efficiency, and implementation obstacles.

4. Methodology

4.1. research design.

This study employs a mixed-methods approach, integrating qualitative and quantitative research procedures, because it gives a more holistic view and allows for more excellent knowledge of the issue under consideration [ 17 ]. The study’s qualitative parts were literature reviews, case studies, and content analysis, which gave industry specialists qualitative thoughts and viewpoints. Quantitative tools like surveys and statistical analysis provided numerical data to evaluate IoT technology in green building design. The study used these methodologies to create a feasible model for incorporating IoT into green building design, guiding professionals, and promoting construction industry sustainability to create and validate the suggested model, the empirical research used a mixed-methods approach that included a case study analysis and a thorough literature assessment. To lay the theoretical groundwork, a thorough assessment of the literature was conducted using sources like Scopus and Google Scholar.

Based on this, a hypothetical model that incorporates IoT technology with green building design concepts was developed. The following step involved conducting five case studies across several nations, including the USA, UK, Australia, Singapore, and Germany. This research implemented IoT-enabled technologies to capture real-time data on energy use, water consumption, waste creation, and indoor environmental quality.

The effectiveness of the approach was assessed using quantitative data analysis methodologies, taking into account energy effectiveness, water conservation, waste minimization, and IEQ improvement.

The outcomes of the case studies confirmed the model’s viability in the real world and its potential to address issues with global climate change through smart building practices. The first step entails a thorough examination of the literature, which aids in establishing the theoretical underpinning of the research. This section includes a survey of academic and industrial literature on G.B.s, IoT, and the incorporation of IoT in G.B. design.

Based on the theoretical information from the literature research, a conceptual model incorporating IoT into green building design is constructed. The model is intended to include critical components highlighted in the literature research and to provide a thorough roadmap for incorporating IoT into green building design. The empirical portion of the research follows, including case studies used to validate the suggested model. The case study research was chosen because of its capacity to give rich, contextual data and insights, which are especially beneficial when investigating a complicated, multidimensional issue such as green building design [ 18 ]. Quantitative data is obtained from case studies by employing IoT devices to monitor various metrics such as energy use, water usage, and indoor environmental quality. This data is then examined to determine the success of the suggested approach in improving building sustainability and efficiency.

4.2. Data collection and analysis

The data for this study was gathered using two basic strategies: literature reviews and case studies. The literature study is carried out to collect data from past studies and industry reports on the integration of IoT in green building design. Electronic databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar are employed to find relevant material. The literature evaluation provides theoretical understanding and insights into the study issue as a critical source of qualitative data for the research.

4.2.1. Case studies.

Case studies give factual and quantitative data for the study. Buildings that use IoT technology are chosen as case studies. Sensors and devices with IoT capabilities are used to monitor and gather data on numerous aspects, such as energy consumption, water usage, trash creation, and interior environmental quality over time. Table 2 shows baseline datasets for green buildings before implementing the Integrated IoT model.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298982.t002

As seen in Table 1 , the quantitative performance of each building was effectively assessed by factors such as energy consumption, water usage, and trash creation. Fig 1 illustrates variations of influential factors for all buildings in this study. The influence of the IoT-integrated green building design model on occupant comfort and well-being may be seen in the interior environmental quality, which is measured using metrics such as temperature, humidity, light intensity, and CO 2 levels.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298982.g001

4.2.2 Data analysis.

Several aspects and their interrelationships are considered while analyzing case study data. Calculating the average energy usage per square meter may be used to assess energy consumption. This is accomplished by dividing total energy use by building size. Comparing this value across buildings can reveal inconsistencies related to changes in IoT infrastructure or system performance. Another critical element to consider is water usage. Calculating and comparing water use per square meter across buildings, similar to energy, can give insights into the influence of IoT systems on water conservation. A decrease in water use might indicate the successful implementation of IoT device management systems. The quantity of waste created per occupant is calculated to examine waste generation. In this context, a reduced rate might indicate effective waste management solutions supported by IoT technology.

Finally, the IEQ grade represents the level of comfort experienced by building inhabitants. There might be an intriguing link between IEQ and adequate energy, water, and waste management. Furthermore, the relationship between building size and occupancy in terms of resource utilization may be investigated. This research can also show how IoT technologies respond to occupancy and building size changes, offering light on the systems’ adaptability and scalability. In Fig 2 , a graphical illustration of buildings was depicted.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298982.g002

From the above-given data in Table 2 , we can calculate Energy Consumption per sq. m Water Usage per sq. m., and Waste Generation per occupant:

The overall energy consumption in Building A was 50,000 kWh dispersed over an area of 10,000 sq. m., resulting in an energy consumption rate of 5.0 kWh per sq. m. Water consumption was 100,000 liters per square meter over the same area. With 200 passengers, the total waste output of 500 kg equals 2.5 kilograms per person. Similar computations can be performed for various structures. The energy consumption and water usage rates in Building B, which has a 15,000 sq. m. area and 300 inhabitants, are the same as in Building A, 5.0 kWh per sq. m. and 10.0 liters per sq. m., respectively. At the same time, waste generation per occupant is still 2.5 kg. Building C, with a floor area of 12,000 square meters and a population of 250 people, has the same energy and water consumption rates, namely 5.0 kWh per square meter and 10.0 liters per square meter. The waste generation per passenger, however, is lower at 2.4 kg. Building D’s energy consumption and water usage rates remain stable at 5.0 kWh per square meter and 10.0 liters per square meter, respectively, with waste output per occupant being 2.5 kg. Finally, with a 14,000 sq. m. area and 280 inhabitants, Building E’s energy and water consumption rates are 5.0 kWh per sq. m. and 10.0 liters per sq. m., respectively. At the same time, waste output per occupant is 2.5 kg, echoing the trends found in the previous buildings.

Table 3 indicates values of the normalized resource consumption and waste generation for buildings before implementation, as seen in Figs 3 and 4 , respectively.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298982.g003

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298982.g004

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298982.t003

5. Development of an integrated iot and green building design model

5.1. framework development.

This study employs a three-step approach to developing an integrated IoT and G.B. design model. To begin, green building design concepts must be defined. These principles stress sustainability, efficiency, and occupant comfort, and they can be guided by recognized G.B. standards like LEED(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), BREEAM (Building et al. Method), or Green Star [ 19 ]. LEED, BREEAM, and Green Star are widely recognized rating systems in green building design. LEED is a rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). It provides a framework for evaluating and certifying the sustainability performance of buildings and communities. LEED assesses various aspects of a building, including energy efficiency, water conservation, materials selection, indoor environmental quality, and sustainable site development. Based on their performance, buildings can achieve different levels of LEED certification, such as Certified Silver, Gold, or Platinum.

Additionally, BREEAM is an assessment method and certification system created by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) in the United Kingdom. Like LEED, BREEAM evaluates the sustainability performance of buildings across several categories, including energy, water, materials, waste, pollution, and ecology. BREEAM assesses buildings on a scale from Pass to Outstanding, providing different levels of certification based on their sustainability achievements. Moreover, Green Star is an Australian rating system developed by the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA). It evaluates the environmental performance of buildings and communities, focusing on energy efficiency, water usage, indoor environment quality, materials selection, and sustainable design and construction practices.

Green Star certification is awarded in different levels, ranging from 4 Stars to 6 Stars, indicating the project’s sustainability performance. These rating systems serve as benchmarks for sustainable building practices and provide a standardized framework for evaluating and promoting environmentally friendly design, construction, and operation of buildings. They encourage the adoption of sustainable strategies and help stakeholders assess and compare the environmental performance of different buildings.

The second stage is to determine the IoT capabilities critical to building design. Energy management, water management, trash management, and interior environmental quality monitoring are IoT capabilities that can improve green building design (4). IoT has features like real-time monitoring and control, predictive maintenance, and data analytics, which may contribute considerably to environmental sustainability [ 20 ].

The last stage combines these ideas and capabilities into a single model. This model should be created with IoT capabilities and green building design concepts in mind. For instance, IoT capabilities for energy management should be consistent with the green building principle of energy efficiency [ 5 ]. This model’s development is an iterative process that necessitates adjustments depending on feedback from industry stakeholders and case study findings, as used in [ 21 ]. The collected data were subjected to analysis using IBM SPSS v23.0 software. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and reliability tests were performed to examine the data. Subsequently, the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach was employed to test the hypotheses and research model.

Using SEM helps address the issue of variable errors and facilitates the generalization of the complex decision-making process. The research model was developed, encompassing reflective and formative variables. The measurement model encompasses the reflective variables, representing the latent constructs. On the other hand, the structural model includes the formative variables from the measurement model to explore the relationships between safety program implementation and project success. Incorporating IoT into G.B. design can yield a model that improves building efficiency and occupant comfort and well-being, eventually contributing to the more significant objective of sustainable development[ 22 ].

5.2. Application and usability of the model

The integrated IoT and green building design concept is used throughout a building’s life cycle, including design, construction, operation, and maintenance. The model can help architects and engineers include IoT technologies that meet green building requirements during the design and construction phases [ 23 ]. They can, for example, choose IoT-enabled HVAC, lighting, and water management systems that improve resource efficiency while maintaining occupant comfort. Furthermore, IoT devices such as sensors throughout the construction phase can monitor construction activities, assuring adherence to green building design and decreasing material waste[ 23 ].

The model’s value endures during the operation and maintenance period. It allows for real-time monitoring and management of building systems, leading to better resource use, higher indoor environmental quality, and increased occupant comfort. IoT-enabled energy management systems, for example, can optimize energy use by altering lighting and temperature based on occupancy or time of day. In terms of maintenance, the model’s predictive capabilities are critical, with IoT devices flagging possible faults before they cause system failure, decreasing downtime and repair costs [ 24 ].

Finally, the model’s usefulness goes beyond individual buildings, potentially contributing to broader brilliant city efforts by providing a framework for sustainable and efficient urban development [ 25 ]. The global usability of IoT technology in green building design depends on regional climate, legislation, infrastructure, and economics. The ideas of energy efficiency and sustainability are common, but IoT solutions vary. Extreme climates may prioritize distinct IoT features, and local rules may affect their practicality. Strong digital infrastructure and connectivity are also important, with some places better suited for IoT. Economic factors and finance affect integration speed [ 8 ]. Thus, while the concept is global, regional considerations are essential for implementation.

5.3 Case study analysis

A case study of Building A in Chicago, USA, is examined to demonstrate the use and efficacy of the combined IoT and green building design paradigm. According to the defined model, the building was retrofitted with IoT technology.

5.3.1 Pre-implementation analysis.

Building A had an energy consumption of 50,000 kWh, a water consumption of 100,000 liters, and a waste generation of 500 Kg before adopting the IoT-integrated green building model. Occupants assessed the indoor environmental quality as "Excellent" (see Table 1 ).

5.3.2 Model Implementation.

Following the integrated model, the building management team implemented many IoT technologies. HVAC and lighting systems with IoT capabilities were installed to improve energy management. Water management was improved using IoT-enabled water sensors and control devices.–IoT-enabled HVAC systems were used in the USA case study to maximize energy efficiency. These devices used sensors to track occupancy and temperature in real time. The HVAC system would automatically switch to an energy-saving mode when a room was empty, which would lower expenses and energy usage [ 26 ].

UK Case Study : IoT-Based Lighting Systems . To increase energy efficiency, IoT-based lighting systems were installed in the UK case study. Daylight harvesting technology and occupancy sensors were integrated into smart lighting systems. Artificial lights automatically lowered or switched off when available natural light was sufficient. Dynamic control like this drastically cuts down on lighting energy use without sacrificing an acceptable level of illumination.

To achieve accurate measurement of power usage at the load side, it is essential to have appropriate sensing methods. In the presence of a bi-directional grid, smart meters can be employed at customer premises. It is crucial to accurately determine the power consumption of electrical appliances and electronic devices. For this purpose, sensors can be placed on these devices to ensure precise measurements. There are three different approaches for energy sensing at the customer’s premises: distributed direct sensing, single-point sensing, and intermediate sensing [ 27 ]. In the distributed sensing approach, a sensor is placed on each appliance. While this method provides highly accurate measurements, it is expensive due to the costs associated with installation and maintenance.

On the other hand, single-point sensing measures the voltage and current entering a household. Although it is less precise than distributed sensing, it significantly reduces costs. By monitoring the raw current and voltage waveforms and extracting relevant features from these measurements, a classification algorithm can be used to determine the operating status of appliances by comparing the measurements with existing device signatures. Intermediate sensing falls between direct and single-point sensing.

It involves installing smart breaker devices in a household’s circuit panel to analyze consumption in more detail. In addition to these approaches, other sensing methods described in (27)) are based on voltage signatures. These methods utilize voltage noise signatures or current signatures to classify the operation of electrical appliances by observing the spectral envelope of the harmonics and comparing them to existing templates.

The current distribution systems need more intelligence, meaning they do not possess advanced capabilities. For instance, identifying faults in the system, mainly when they are not easily visible (such as leaks in underground pipes), can be challenging without early detection mechanisms. Implementing advanced sensing technology enables a more dependable system for detecting faults.

Australian Case Study : Water Sensors and Control Devices . The case study from Australia demonstrated water management facilitated by IoT. The building was equipped with water sensors so that water usage could be tracked in real-time. Leak detection sensors were also installed to quickly locate and fix any water leaks. Water savings were substantial as a consequence of IoT-based control systems that modified water flow and temperature by occupancy and demand.

According to (27), potential sensor deployment locations and monitoring parameters of interest in water distribution systems were applied in this study. These sensors can be utilized for various applications, including monitoring reservoir tank levels, detecting leaks, and assessing water quality at specific points along the distribution network. In Metje et al.’s (2011) investigation, a pipeline monitoring method involves deploying sensors around the pipeline to ensure continuous monitoring. Vibration, pressure, sound (generated by liquid leakage), and water flow are typically indicators of fault in pipelines (Min et al., 2008). The water distribution system is depicted in Fig 5 . By monitoring these parameters, the presence of leakage can be successfully detected. In Stoianov et al.’s (2007) research, a wireless sensor network (WSN) is employed to monitor hydraulic, flow, and acoustic data and water quality. Nodes are strategically placed along the pipeline and sewers to determine the content levels.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298982.g005

Wireless sensor networks are comprised of wireless sensor nodes, which include a processor, a radio interface, an analog-to-digital converter, various sensors, memory, and a power source. The overall structure of a wireless sensor node is depicted in Fig 6 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298982.g006

Singapore Case Study on IoT-Based Water Quality Assurance . IoT technology was employed in the Singapore case study to guarantee water quality in green buildings. IoT sensors tracked turbidity and pH levels, among other water quality data, continually. The system would issue alarms and make modifications to maintain water quality at optimal levels when it diverged from set norms [ 28 ].

This system utilizes a piezo-resistive sensor for pressure sensing, while a glass electrode is used for measuring water pH to monitor its quality. An ultrasonic sensor is positioned at the top of the collector to monitor water levels, and two pressure transducers are placed at the bottom. Vibration data is collected using dual-axis accelerometers.

The gathered data is then subjected to analysis to detect leaks. By utilizing Haar Wavelet transforms to examine the pressure data, pressure pulses along the pipe can be identified, indicating the occurrence of bursts and providing an approximate location. Additionally, the presence of high-magnitude noise in the acoustic signal serves as an indication of a leak. Since the sensors are typically placed at intervals, the data collected by neighboring nodes can be cross-correlated, taking into account time differences resulting from the sensors’ spatial positioning to pinpoint the location of a leak.

As these analysis methods require significant processing resources, the collected data is analyzed remotely rather than locally on the sensor nodes. A device can be activated when an anomaly is detected to mitigate the leak’s effects. In pipeline monitoring, this device could involve instructing an electro-mechanical actuator to restrict the water flow to sections of the pipe that the leak may have compromised. Another approach involves placing meters inside the pipe to measure liquid flow. Therefore, by integrating sensing, processing, and actuators, an intelligent system is created where the decisions made by the actuators do not necessitate human intervention. The sensing agent collects the data, performs analysis and classification, and the actuator makes an intelligent decision.

5.3.3 Post-Implementation analysis.

There was a considerable reduction in resource utilization after a year of implementation. The energy usage was reduced to 40,000 kWh, a 20% decrease. Water consumption has also lowered by 15% to 85,000 liters. Waste generation has been reduced by 10% to 450 Kg. Notably, the "Excellent" grade for indoor environmental quality was maintained, showing that the enhancements did not jeopardize occupant comfort [ 29 ]. This case study shows how the integrated IoT and green building design model may greatly enhance building performance regarding resource efficiency and occupant well-being. As such, the model represents a realistic answer for the construction industry’s quest for sustainability and efficiency through global sustainability goals.

Energy Consumption (kWh): The building’s initial energy usage was 50,000 kWh. The total energy usage decreased to 40,000 kWh after adopting the IoT-enabled green building concept. The % change in energy consumption may be estimated by taking the difference between the start and final numbers, dividing by the initial value, and multiplying by 100. Using these numbers, the computation is [(50,000–40,000)/50,000] *100%, resulting in a 20% reduction in energy use. An overview of accumulated datasets is presented in Table 4 .

Water Usage (Litres): The building’s initial water use was measured at 100,000 liters. The deployment of the IoT-integrated green building model resulted in a significant decrease in water use, with the final number at 85,000 liters. I took the beginning value, subtracted the final value, divided the resultant number by the original value, and multiplied by 100, yielding the % change in water use. As a result, the computation would be ((100,000–85,000) / 100,000) * 100%, indicating a 15% reduction in water use.

Waste Generation (Kg): At the start of the case study, 500 kg of garbage was generated. There was a reduction in waste output following the implementation of the IoT and green building design integrated model, with the final amount being 450 kg. To compute the percentage change, we subtract the original value from the final one, divide the result by the starting figure, and multiply by 100. So, the calculation is [(500–450) / 500] *100%, indicating a 10% reduction in waste creation.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298982.t004

6. Results and discussion

6.1 interpretation of results.

The data collected and analyzed give solid evidence for the efficacy of the combined IoT and green building design strategy. Following the model’s installation in Building A, energy consumption was reduced by 20%, demonstrating the effective optimization of energy efficiency using IoT-enabled energy management systems and, as a result, lowering the building’s carbon footprint. Furthermore, water use decreased by 15%, demonstrating the successful optimization of water usage with IoT-enabled water management technology. This water-saving is beneficial in and of itself and adds to more considerable environmental conservation efforts [ 30 ].

Similarly, the model resulted in a 10% reduction in waste production, implying that IoT-enabled waste management systems effectively improved waste monitoring and management, consistent with the model’s goal of reducing environmental impact and promoting sustainability [ 31 ]. Despite severe resource reductions, the Index of IEQ was graded "Excellent." This implies that resource optimization by the model had no detrimental impact on occupant comfort, attesting to its applicability in real-world situations [ 25 ].

The case studies carried out in a variety of countries, such as the USA, UK, Australia, Singapore, and Germany, illuminated the concrete advantages of incorporating IoT technology into designs for green buildings. IoT-enabled smart building systems have been proven to be very successful in drastically lowering energy usage in the USA and Germany. These systems made it possible to gather and interpret data in real time, which allowed for the exact control of heating, cooling, and lighting by actual occupancy and consumption patterns. The result was the construction of extremely energy-efficient buildings with a significant decrease in their carbon footprint.

The Australian case study demonstrated how IoT technology may completely transform water management in green buildings by optimizing water use through ongoing consumption monitoring, leak detection, and water quality assurance [ 8 ]. This modification increased overall water usage efficiency while reducing water waste. Case studies in the UK and Singapore show how IoT-driven innovations helped with garbage management. Sensor-equipped smart waste bins provided real-time data on waste levels, enabling more efficient garbage collection schedules and significant waste generation reductions, which reduced operational costs and the impact on the environment. Furthermore, as the case studies [ 12 ] demonstrate, the incorporation of smart sensors and devices for temperature, lighting, and air quality controls greatly improved the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) within the buildings. Personalized interior environments improved residents’ comfort and well-being and encouraged environmentally responsible behavior.

Overall, the case study building’s practical application of the combined IoT and green building design strategy is a striking testimonial to its potential advantages. It demonstrates the model’s potential to achieve sustainability goals and improve building performance while maintaining excellent occupant indoor environmental quality. Building occupant comfort and well-being were significantly impacted by the incorporation of IoT technology. Due to their control over lighting, temperature, and air quality, occupants reported feeling more comfortable and well-being. Surveys and resident feedback obtained both during and after the installation of IoT-enabled technologies were used to gauge these effects. Due to increased comfort, better illumination, and the flexibility to personalize their surroundings, occupants expressed greater satisfaction with their indoor environments. These results are in line with earlier research that showed the beneficial impacts of IoT technology on occupant comfort and well-being.

6.2 Implications for green building and IoT industry

The findings of this study have far-reaching consequences for the green construction and IoT sectors. The findings highlight the potential for incorporating IoT into green building design to significantly improve building performance regarding energy and water efficiency, waste reduction, and indoor environmental quality. One of the most important aspects of environmental preservation is the incorporation of IoT technology. Through the analysis of real-time occupancy and environmental data, IoT-enabled smart building systems improve energy efficiency, leading to fewer carbon emissions and energy consumption. Another advantage is that IoT-based devices can conserve water by monitoring and optimizing water use and identifying leaks. This lessens the impact of water waste on the environment.

Real-time monitoring made possible by IoT sensors also revolutionizes waste management by enabling effective waste collection schedules and lower operating expenses. Additionally, by controlling lighting, humidity, temperature, and air quality, IoT improves interior environmental quality and eventually increases occupant comfort and well-being. Finally, by using IoT sensors for predictive maintenance, building systems can last longer, require fewer resource-intensive replacements, and produce less waste. The model’s proven real-world performance offers the green construction sector a viable and effective way of reaching sustainability goals. This integrated strategy encourages transitioning from traditional, resource-intensive building procedures to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly approach. In terms of the IoT sector, the study emphasizes the importance of IoT in the green construction industry and its potential contribution to sustainable urban development.

According to the study, green building design represents a promising market for IoT developers and service providers since their solutions may address actual, real-world difficulties. Unexpected results could include the necessity to successfully balance environmental trade-offs, positive occupant behavior changes, and synergistic benefits The research also emphasizes the need for IoT solutions, especially customized to green building requirements, such as energy-efficient devices and practical data processing tools. Furthermore, incorporating IoT into green building design has far-reaching consequences for legislators, urban planners, and environmental activists. The method supports a transition to smart, sustainable cities by demonstrating the potential of advanced technology in tackling significant environmental concerns and encouraging sustainable living [ 22 ].

7. Conclusion

This study draws numerous vital findings concerning the feasibility of implementing IoT technology into green building design. Resource optimization is one of the most successful outcomes. The case study revealed that the IoT-enabled green building concept significantly boosted resource efficiency. This was proved by a 20% drop in energy usage, a 15% decrease in water consumption, and a 10% decrease in trash generation. This demonstrates IoT technology’s importance in reaching resource efficiency goals in green buildings. The quality of the building’s internal atmosphere remained maintained even with reduced resource consumption. This shows that using IoT technology to balance resource efficiency and occupant comfort in green buildings is possible. Aside from maintaining a high-quality indoor atmosphere, the model’s practical application in a real-world setting indicates its scalability.

This implies that the approach may be applied in more buildings or on a city-wide scale, adding to the sustainability of urban growth. The results have consequences for the industry as well. They emphasize a prospective market for IoT technology in the green building sector and the potential for green building practices to boost construction sustainability. Thus, incorporating IoT technology into green building design has enormous potential for increasing building efficiency, achieving environmental sustainability goals, and stimulating the creation of intelligent, sustainable cities.

The research has practical implications in two main areas. Additionally, it thoroughly examines the obstacles faced in implementing green building (G.B.) projects in Turkey, providing a comprehensive understanding of these barriers. Moreover, it clarifies the perspectives of public agency representatives and professionals working in private entities regarding the significance of these barriers. This more profound understanding of the barriers can help policymakers and construction practitioners develop well-informed strategies to promote green practices in China and other developing countries with similar socio-economic conditions. Furthermore, the in-depth analysis of these barriers can benefit foreign investors interested in investing in G.B. projects in China. By better understanding the G.B. industry in China, they can make more realistic investment decisions.

However, it is essential to note that the study has limitations. There were obstacles and difficulties in integrating IoT technology into the design of green buildings. A prominent obstacle was the upfront expenses associated with setting up IoT infrastructure and installing devices, which were frequently viewed as a substantial financial commitment. However, the long-term savings in energy consumption, upkeep, and operational efficiency that IoT devices provided helped to offset this cost.

Concerns about data security and privacy were also very important because IoT devices required the gathering and sharing of sensitive data. Strong security procedures and encryption techniques were put in place to protect data integrity and privacy to allay these worries. The requirement for certain knowledge and abilities to successfully manage and run IoT-enabled technologies presented another difficulty. Training was necessary for building management employees to handle and comprehend the data produced by IoT devices.

In addition, there were problems with compatibility when combining IoT solutions with pre-existing building systems. Thorough preparation and compatibility evaluations were required to guarantee a smooth integration Notwithstanding these difficulties, IoT technology is a potential strategy for sustainable building design because its overall advantages, like improved occupant comfort and energy efficiency, exceeded the early drawbacks.

Although more significant than the recommended value for proper factor analysis, the sample size used in the research is still relatively small. Increasing the sample size in future studies could yield more reliable results. Additionally, future research can focus on expanding the participant demographics to ensure a more balanced distribution. While this study primarily focused on barriers to G.B. projects, future investigations could explore the barriers and the driving factors in different countries.

Furthermore, influential factors on IEQ will be analyzed by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA). Ultimately, this index would be predicted by various Machine Learning (ML) models (i.e., Evolutionary Polynomial Regression [EPR], Deep Learning [DL], Random Forest [R.F.], Support Vector Machine [SVM]) through the process of G.B. design by IoT.

7.1 Future studies

Future research studies could improve the organization and coherence of the transition from outlining the limitations of the study to suggesting future research directions. Based on our study’s findings, numerous significant future research objectives and areas for development in green building design use IoT technology. First, sophisticated IoT applications, especially for optimizing renewable energy sources like solar and wind power, can improve energy efficiency. Understanding how IoT affects occupant behavior and well-being, especially in personalized IoT-driven settings, can inform human-centric design

To secure building systems and tenant data, IoT data collection and processing must be thoroughly investigated for cybersecurity and privacy issues. Further research is needed to standardize and interoperate IoT devices and systems for scalability and acceptance in green building design.

A detailed cost-benefit analysis will help stakeholders decide on the financial and long-term benefits of IoT integration in green buildings. Governments and regulators can promote sustainability by studying how policies and regulations affect IoT integration.

Finally, architectural, design, and building management professionals require specific education and training to use IoT’s promise in green building design. These programs can equip practitioners for the changing landscape of IoT technologies in sustainability and environmental preservation. IoT technology in green building design is relevant globally but requires regional and local considerations. Sustainability, energy efficiency, and environmental preservation are universal values, but obstacles and priorities vary. Climate, legal frameworks, resource availability, cultural factors, economic factors, and infrastructure readiness all affect IoT-enabled green building solutions. Extreme climates may optimize HVAC, while water scarcity zones may use IoT to manage water. Local building codes must be followed, and economic concerns may affect IoT implementations.

Supporting information

S1 dataset..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298982.s001

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The state of AI in early 2024: Gen AI adoption spikes and starts to generate value

If 2023 was the year the world discovered generative AI (gen AI) , 2024 is the year organizations truly began using—and deriving business value from—this new technology. In the latest McKinsey Global Survey  on AI, 65 percent of respondents report that their organizations are regularly using gen AI, nearly double the percentage from our previous survey just ten months ago. Respondents’ expectations for gen AI’s impact remain as high as they were last year , with three-quarters predicting that gen AI will lead to significant or disruptive change in their industries in the years ahead.

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Alex Singla , Alexander Sukharevsky , Lareina Yee , and Michael Chui , with Bryce Hall , representing views from QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, and McKinsey Digital.

Organizations are already seeing material benefits from gen AI use, reporting both cost decreases and revenue jumps in the business units deploying the technology. The survey also provides insights into the kinds of risks presented by gen AI—most notably, inaccuracy—as well as the emerging practices of top performers to mitigate those challenges and capture value.

AI adoption surges

Interest in generative AI has also brightened the spotlight on a broader set of AI capabilities. For the past six years, AI adoption by respondents’ organizations has hovered at about 50 percent. This year, the survey finds that adoption has jumped to 72 percent (Exhibit 1). And the interest is truly global in scope. Our 2023 survey found that AI adoption did not reach 66 percent in any region; however, this year more than two-thirds of respondents in nearly every region say their organizations are using AI. 1 Organizations based in Central and South America are the exception, with 58 percent of respondents working for organizations based in Central and South America reporting AI adoption. Looking by industry, the biggest increase in adoption can be found in professional services. 2 Includes respondents working for organizations focused on human resources, legal services, management consulting, market research, R&D, tax preparation, and training.

Also, responses suggest that companies are now using AI in more parts of the business. Half of respondents say their organizations have adopted AI in two or more business functions, up from less than a third of respondents in 2023 (Exhibit 2).

Future frontiers: Navigating the next wave of tech innovations

Join Lareina Yee and Roger Roberts on Tuesday, July 30, at 12:30 p.m. EDT/6:30 p.m. CET as they discuss the future of these technological trends, the factors that will fuel their growth, and strategies for investing in them through 2024 and beyond.

Gen AI adoption is most common in the functions where it can create the most value

Most respondents now report that their organizations—and they as individuals—are using gen AI. Sixty-five percent of respondents say their organizations are regularly using gen AI in at least one business function, up from one-third last year. The average organization using gen AI is doing so in two functions, most often in marketing and sales and in product and service development—two functions in which previous research  determined that gen AI adoption could generate the most value 3 “ The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier ,” McKinsey, June 14, 2023. —as well as in IT (Exhibit 3). The biggest increase from 2023 is found in marketing and sales, where reported adoption has more than doubled. Yet across functions, only two use cases, both within marketing and sales, are reported by 15 percent or more of respondents.

Gen AI also is weaving its way into respondents’ personal lives. Compared with 2023, respondents are much more likely to be using gen AI at work and even more likely to be using gen AI both at work and in their personal lives (Exhibit 4). The survey finds upticks in gen AI use across all regions, with the largest increases in Asia–Pacific and Greater China. Respondents at the highest seniority levels, meanwhile, show larger jumps in the use of gen Al tools for work and outside of work compared with their midlevel-management peers. Looking at specific industries, respondents working in energy and materials and in professional services report the largest increase in gen AI use.

Investments in gen AI and analytical AI are beginning to create value

The latest survey also shows how different industries are budgeting for gen AI. Responses suggest that, in many industries, organizations are about equally as likely to be investing more than 5 percent of their digital budgets in gen AI as they are in nongenerative, analytical-AI solutions (Exhibit 5). Yet in most industries, larger shares of respondents report that their organizations spend more than 20 percent on analytical AI than on gen AI. Looking ahead, most respondents—67 percent—expect their organizations to invest more in AI over the next three years.

Where are those investments paying off? For the first time, our latest survey explored the value created by gen AI use by business function. The function in which the largest share of respondents report seeing cost decreases is human resources. Respondents most commonly report meaningful revenue increases (of more than 5 percent) in supply chain and inventory management (Exhibit 6). For analytical AI, respondents most often report seeing cost benefits in service operations—in line with what we found last year —as well as meaningful revenue increases from AI use in marketing and sales.

Inaccuracy: The most recognized and experienced risk of gen AI use

As businesses begin to see the benefits of gen AI, they’re also recognizing the diverse risks associated with the technology. These can range from data management risks such as data privacy, bias, or intellectual property (IP) infringement to model management risks, which tend to focus on inaccurate output or lack of explainability. A third big risk category is security and incorrect use.

Respondents to the latest survey are more likely than they were last year to say their organizations consider inaccuracy and IP infringement to be relevant to their use of gen AI, and about half continue to view cybersecurity as a risk (Exhibit 7).

Conversely, respondents are less likely than they were last year to say their organizations consider workforce and labor displacement to be relevant risks and are not increasing efforts to mitigate them.

In fact, inaccuracy— which can affect use cases across the gen AI value chain , ranging from customer journeys and summarization to coding and creative content—is the only risk that respondents are significantly more likely than last year to say their organizations are actively working to mitigate.

Some organizations have already experienced negative consequences from the use of gen AI, with 44 percent of respondents saying their organizations have experienced at least one consequence (Exhibit 8). Respondents most often report inaccuracy as a risk that has affected their organizations, followed by cybersecurity and explainability.

Our previous research has found that there are several elements of governance that can help in scaling gen AI use responsibly, yet few respondents report having these risk-related practices in place. 4 “ Implementing generative AI with speed and safety ,” McKinsey Quarterly , March 13, 2024. For example, just 18 percent say their organizations have an enterprise-wide council or board with the authority to make decisions involving responsible AI governance, and only one-third say gen AI risk awareness and risk mitigation controls are required skill sets for technical talent.

Bringing gen AI capabilities to bear

The latest survey also sought to understand how, and how quickly, organizations are deploying these new gen AI tools. We have found three archetypes for implementing gen AI solutions : takers use off-the-shelf, publicly available solutions; shapers customize those tools with proprietary data and systems; and makers develop their own foundation models from scratch. 5 “ Technology’s generational moment with generative AI: A CIO and CTO guide ,” McKinsey, July 11, 2023. Across most industries, the survey results suggest that organizations are finding off-the-shelf offerings applicable to their business needs—though many are pursuing opportunities to customize models or even develop their own (Exhibit 9). About half of reported gen AI uses within respondents’ business functions are utilizing off-the-shelf, publicly available models or tools, with little or no customization. Respondents in energy and materials, technology, and media and telecommunications are more likely to report significant customization or tuning of publicly available models or developing their own proprietary models to address specific business needs.

Respondents most often report that their organizations required one to four months from the start of a project to put gen AI into production, though the time it takes varies by business function (Exhibit 10). It also depends upon the approach for acquiring those capabilities. Not surprisingly, reported uses of highly customized or proprietary models are 1.5 times more likely than off-the-shelf, publicly available models to take five months or more to implement.

Gen AI high performers are excelling despite facing challenges

Gen AI is a new technology, and organizations are still early in the journey of pursuing its opportunities and scaling it across functions. So it’s little surprise that only a small subset of respondents (46 out of 876) report that a meaningful share of their organizations’ EBIT can be attributed to their deployment of gen AI. Still, these gen AI leaders are worth examining closely. These, after all, are the early movers, who already attribute more than 10 percent of their organizations’ EBIT to their use of gen AI. Forty-two percent of these high performers say more than 20 percent of their EBIT is attributable to their use of nongenerative, analytical AI, and they span industries and regions—though most are at organizations with less than $1 billion in annual revenue. The AI-related practices at these organizations can offer guidance to those looking to create value from gen AI adoption at their own organizations.

To start, gen AI high performers are using gen AI in more business functions—an average of three functions, while others average two. They, like other organizations, are most likely to use gen AI in marketing and sales and product or service development, but they’re much more likely than others to use gen AI solutions in risk, legal, and compliance; in strategy and corporate finance; and in supply chain and inventory management. They’re more than three times as likely as others to be using gen AI in activities ranging from processing of accounting documents and risk assessment to R&D testing and pricing and promotions. While, overall, about half of reported gen AI applications within business functions are utilizing publicly available models or tools, gen AI high performers are less likely to use those off-the-shelf options than to either implement significantly customized versions of those tools or to develop their own proprietary foundation models.

What else are these high performers doing differently? For one thing, they are paying more attention to gen-AI-related risks. Perhaps because they are further along on their journeys, they are more likely than others to say their organizations have experienced every negative consequence from gen AI we asked about, from cybersecurity and personal privacy to explainability and IP infringement. Given that, they are more likely than others to report that their organizations consider those risks, as well as regulatory compliance, environmental impacts, and political stability, to be relevant to their gen AI use, and they say they take steps to mitigate more risks than others do.

Gen AI high performers are also much more likely to say their organizations follow a set of risk-related best practices (Exhibit 11). For example, they are nearly twice as likely as others to involve the legal function and embed risk reviews early on in the development of gen AI solutions—that is, to “ shift left .” They’re also much more likely than others to employ a wide range of other best practices, from strategy-related practices to those related to scaling.

In addition to experiencing the risks of gen AI adoption, high performers have encountered other challenges that can serve as warnings to others (Exhibit 12). Seventy percent say they have experienced difficulties with data, including defining processes for data governance, developing the ability to quickly integrate data into AI models, and an insufficient amount of training data, highlighting the essential role that data play in capturing value. High performers are also more likely than others to report experiencing challenges with their operating models, such as implementing agile ways of working and effective sprint performance management.

About the research

The online survey was in the field from February 22 to March 5, 2024, and garnered responses from 1,363 participants representing the full range of regions, industries, company sizes, functional specialties, and tenures. Of those respondents, 981 said their organizations had adopted AI in at least one business function, and 878 said their organizations were regularly using gen AI in at least one function. To adjust for differences in response rates, the data are weighted by the contribution of each respondent’s nation to global GDP.

Alex Singla and Alexander Sukharevsky  are global coleaders of QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, and senior partners in McKinsey’s Chicago and London offices, respectively; Lareina Yee  is a senior partner in the Bay Area office, where Michael Chui , a McKinsey Global Institute partner, is a partner; and Bryce Hall  is an associate partner in the Washington, DC, office.

They wish to thank Kaitlin Noe, Larry Kanter, Mallika Jhamb, and Shinjini Srivastava for their contributions to this work.

This article was edited by Heather Hanselman, a senior editor in McKinsey’s Atlanta office.

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• In US, Prices for Common Health Services Vary Widely by Location JAMA Medical News in Brief November 28, 2023 Emily Harris

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Chartock BL , Simon K , Whaley CM. Transparency in Coverage Data and Variation in Prices for Common Health Care Services. JAMA Health Forum. 2023;4(10):e233663. doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.3663

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Transparency in Coverage Data and Variation in Prices for Common Health Care Services

• 1 Department of Economics, Bentley University, Waltham, Massachusetts
• 2 The Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington
• 3 Department of Health Services, Policy and Practice, Brown University School of Public Health, Providence, Rhode Island
• Medical News in Brief In US, Prices for Common Health Services Vary Widely by Location Emily Harris JAMA

Over half of the US population receives health insurance from private insurers, and prices are negotiated rather than set administratively (eg, Medicare). This negotiation process contributes to a landscape in which private insurance prices are both higher than Medicare rates and highly variable. 1 The private market lacked meaningful price transparency for patients and purchasers until the recent implementation of Hospital Price Transparency and Transparency in Coverage (TiC) rules. 2 Lack of transparency limits the ability of regulators to monitor prices and of employers, patients, and purchasers to impose market discipline on prices. We examined TiC price data for common services from Humana, a large national insurer, and highlighted use cases of such novel data for future research. New TiC payer data are released each month by all payers. Informed health care consumerism is a potential lever for managing costs and improving patient satisfaction.

We obtained October 2022 TiC data from Humana’s public-facing portal and downloaded data in batches (Python Software). 3 Indiana University Institutional Review Board deemed this cross-sectional study exempt from ethics review and informed consent because it was not human participant research.

Humana rates were chosen because of its largely national coverage of clinicians and facilities and our ability to speedily parse the data files. While mostly a provider of Medicare Advantage benefits, Humana covers approximately 1 million individuals with commercial insurance. 4 We restricted analyses to in-network clinicians and facilities and used the mean posted price when the data included multiple contracted rates for the same procedure and clinician or facility within the same network.

We focused on 7 procedures, including more shoppable codes (computed tomography [CT] scan of head or brain without contrast) and less shoppable codes (high-severity emergency department [ED] visit). A key challenge was that TiC data reported rates for clinicians and facilities regardless of whether they actually performed a given service. To identify those who performed the selected services, we used both 2019 100% Medicare fee-for-service claims data and commercial claims data from the RAND hospital price transparency project 5 to match clinicians and facilities who performed these services by their National Provider Identifiers. We analyzed distributional differences in prices (mean, median, and percentiles) and coefficients of variation. Data analysis was performed using Stata 17.0 (StataCorp LLC).

The Table presents descriptive characteristics of the study sample and price variation. The number of clinicians and facilities with Humana prices ranged from 4192 for hip arthroplasty to 189 471 for established patient office visit. Coefficients of variation were similar for both more and less shoppable services (0.51 for CT of head or brain without contrast; 0.53 for high-severity ED visit).

The Figure maps the variation in prices for established patient office visits across US counties. The mean (IQR) county-level price was $86 ($69-$93). Generally, mean county-level prices were lowest in the central US and Florida. Prices were higher in the upper-Midwest and Southeast. Importantly, many higher-priced counties bordered lower-priced counties. Similar geographic patterns were observed for other procedures.

This study revealed how novel data can inform policies that improve the efficiency of the US health care system. The study was limited to a single insurer and 7 procedures; however, it opens the door to using TiC data in other, broader settings.

Future work may examine the underlying causes of price variation in health care, as it is unclear whether prices are meaningfully associated with value as in nearly every market, or whether prices reflect imbalances in market power and negotiation leverage. If price variation reflects clinical or perceived quality variation, purchasers and policymakers need to find balance between receiving higher-quality care and spending financial resources elsewhere. However, if price variation is driven by consolidation or anticompetitive contracting, then regulators should design policies that ensure competitive health care markets. The factors determining price variation are likely in the middle of these 2 possibilities.

Accepted for Publication: August 23, 2023.

Published: October 27, 2023. doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.3663

Open Access: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License . © 2023 Chartock BL et al. JAMA Health Forum .

Corresponding Author: Benjamin L. Chartock, PhD, Bentley University, 175 Forest St, AAC 179, Waltham, MA 02452 ( [email protected] ).

Author Contributions: Dr Chartock had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Concept and design: All authors.

Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: Chartock, Whaley.

Drafting of the manuscript: All authors.

Critical review of the manuscript for important intellectual content: All authors.

Statistical analysis: Chartock, Whaley.

Obtained funding: Whaley.

Administrative, technical, or material support: Chartock, Whaley.

Supervision: Simon, Whaley.

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Whaley reported receiving funding from Patient Rights Advocates for this study and funding from the National Institute on Aging and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation during the conduct of the study. No other disclosures were reported.

Data Sharing Statement: See the Supplement .

Additional Contributions: We are grateful to Raman Singh, MS, and Rosie Kerber, MPP, for excellent data and programming assistance. They received no additional compensation beyond their usual salaries for their contributions to this work.