From the editors of Conservation Biology
Conservation biology was founded as a mission-driven discipline. Achieving conservation goals, therefore, means constantly confronting conceptual and operational challenges to make the science and practice of conservation more effective, inclusive, and ethical. For example, it is important to be academically rigorous, but also to affect change in the real world. Yet, structural legacy effects, such as favoring particular disciplines (e.g., ecological sciences), regions (e.g., the Global North), and voices (e.g., scientists over Indigenous peoples and local communities), can hinder advances on many fronts.
One of these challenges regards access and contributions to information generation and dissemination, which in the case of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) includes the publication of three journals. Here, we focus on the society’s first and so-called flagship journal, Conservation Biology (ConBio). With this note, our objective is to improve understanding of ConBio’s publication model to achieve greater equity, diversity, and inclusion in the authorship of articles we publish (see also Teel et al. [2018] for an editorial on disciplinary diversity for publishing in ConBio).
On the one hand, academic journals must maintain financial solvency for their long-term viability. On the other hand, when charges become barriers to publishing or even reading articles, then this conflicts with SCB’s broader mission and values. In ConBio’s case, the journal is owned by SCB, a nonprofit organization, and payment of article publication costs associated with either open access or page charges furthers the journal and the society’s broader work. When the page-charge option is selected the article is available through subscription (i.e., the reader pays). Specifically, these funds help defray expenses associated with journal production (e.g., submission portal, typesetting, journal website) and support society initiatives. Yet, the journal’s policy has always been that an author’s ability to pay will not affect whether the manuscript is accepted for publication.
To lessen the cost barrier, ConBio publishes under a hybrid financing model. With open access, anyone can read articles for free, but authors are required to pay a fee of US$3,090. SCB members receive a 20% discount on open access, but the fee cannot be waived or discounted further. The alternative is page charges, which are US$150 per page for nonmembers and $120 per page for members. With page charges, though, any member who has no institutional support or other means of paying these charges can be granted a page-charge waiver (see Author Guidelines). Yet, this fact seems to be insufficiently known.
We suspect that authors who have no publication funds consider whether to submit based on a binary decision: cost or no cost. However, ConBio offers free publication through page charge waivers to help authors, particularly from the Global South or marginalized communities where institutional support is less, minimize financial barriers to publication. While waivers require becoming a part of SCB, the society has made “full membership” available for as low as US$30 per year, depending on income (see Membership).
We invite the best contributions possible for publication in ConBio, regardless of an author’s funding sources, as a means of fulfilling the journal’s and SCB’s missions and to reflect our broader values of equity, diversity, and inclusion.
On behalf of Conservation Biology,
- Acting Editor-in-Chief and South America Regional Editor, Christopher B. Anderson
- Managing Editor, Frith Jarrad
- Senior Editor, Ellen Main
- Africa Regional Editor, Karen Esler
- Asia Regional Editor, Fu-Wen Wei
- Europe Regional Editor, Carlo Rondinini
- North America Regional Editor, Resit Akcakaya
- Oceania Regional Editor, Helene Marsh
- Mark Burgman, Editor-in-Chief (currently on leave of duties)
- Micahel McCarthy, Associate Editor
- Emma Johnson, Associate Editor
References:
Teel, T., C.B. Anderson, M.A. Burgman, J. Cinner, D. Clark, R.A. Estevez, J.P.G. Jones, T. McClanahan, M.S. Reed, C. Sandbrook & F.A.V. St. John (2018). Publishing social sciences in Conservation Biology to move beyond biology. Conservation Biology 32: 6-8. https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.13059