In what has become a familiar refrain, more than 30 editors and advisors of an economics journal have resigned because they felt the publisher’s need for growth would increase the “risks of proliferation of poor-quality science.”

In a letter uploaded to Dropbox on February 7, the editors and advisors of the Journal of Economic Surveys said: “We no longer believed that the corporate policies and practices of the Journal’s publisher, Wiley, as we perceived them through several statements made by Wiley and the draft of a new editor agreement submitted to the attention of Editors-in-Chief and Managing Editors by Wiley, were coherent with ours.”

Despite involving a lawyer, the now-former editors said:

The non-negotiable documentation submitted to our analysis appeared to emphasize quantity over quality of the papers submitted and strongly favoured cross pollination among the various Wiley publications also in relation to papers that we would have not considered favourably for the Journal of Economic Surveys increasing–in our perception–risks of proliferation of poor-quality science.

In a statement through a spokesperson to Retraction Watch, Allyn Molina, Wiley’s vice president of publishing development. said the company was “grateful to the leadership and dedication of the former Editors who created a strong foundation.” The journal offers an open access option, for a fee of more than $4,000 per article. But Molina said “this journal does not have any open access publishing targets.” 

He continued:

Wiley proposed increasing publication output by 4% over the prior year as a goal rather than a requirement. In absolute terms, that’s an increase of 2 additional articles per year. This is supported by significant growth in submissions and a trend of emerging topics in the field.

Les Oxley, one of the two former managing editors in chief of the journal, said he and his colleagues had “have no comment to make” on Wiley’s statement.

The mass resignation joins a growing list of more than two dozen such episodes, as academic researchers battle for-profit journal publishing companies. Quoting public statements by Wiley, the editors wrote:

Wiley’s performance metrics for journals are “growth in submissions” and “growth in published articles”; Wiley also appears ready to affirm that “it’s all driven by volume ultimately”.

The company, the editors wrote, again quoting public statements, “considers it ‘important to keep authors at the center of journal strategy’” and “has an ‘Open Access (‘pay to publish’)’ business model and a ‘Cascade strategy of finding initially rejected articles another more appropriate home within Wiley’s portfolio.’”

Wiley told Retraction Watch:

We regularly take steps to ensure our journals are best serving the needs of the academic community. Over time, this means updating our editorial and production processes to improve the author experience, ensuring our workflows meet the needs of authors, librarians and funders, and bolstering processes to safeguard research integrity. Editors are key to making these changes happen, and our goal is always to reach common ground on changes that support the long-term success of the journal. We recognize that not all Editors will embrace these changes, and where compromise cannot be reached, it is sometimes in our mutual interest to part ways.

The publisher said it “will work with the succeeding editorial team to carry on that legacy.”

We are currently working with members of the board and wider community to recruit new leadership for the journal. This is a fully transparent process that includes advertising and recruiting within the wider field. In partnership with the new editorial team, we plan to introduce best practice editorial workflows and broaden the journal’s scope to reflect new and emerging fields.

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