Have you ever tried to access a research article in an academic journal, without using institutional access through a subscribing university of library? Let’s take a look at some examples: the British journal Nature charges 18.00 USD to access a single article in its latest issue. Science, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, charges 15.00 USD for 24 hour access to a single article, and the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, PNAS, charges 10.00 USD for 48 hours.

Why is it so expensive? Do journal publishers actually make significant revenue from sales to individuals not accessing through a subscription service? I haven’t done any research on this topic, but I would bet all of my biscuits that the answer is no. I would expect that the largest share in journal revenues comes from institutional and individual subscriptions, and that price per article per person paid through subscription is significantly lower. Perhaps this is to encourage subscriptions – after all, if one reads more than a handful of articles on Science or Nature in one year, a subscription would be better value (at least with current prices).

But what about individuals who might not normally read more than one or two articles per year? We often hear about some new and interesting research, and when we try to go a little deeper to learn about it, we hit a very discouraging pay-wall. If you don’t expect to be reading much from a single journal in the first place, you’re probably not going to pay for a subscription. At this point, you’re left with deciding to pay the premium or curb your interests.

In my opinion, perhaps the worst consequence of the current price scheme used by academic journals is that it insulates academic research from the general public, making science inaccessible, and forcing most people to depend on (often terrible and/or misleading) press coverage. I think the academic community would do a great social favour if it worked towards making primary source research content more affordable to the wider public.