Paolo Crosetto
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paolocrosetto.bsky.social
Paolo Crosetto
@paolocrosetto.bsky.social
2.8K followers 1.3K following 520 posts
Experimental & Behavioural economist INRAE Grenoble • President of the French Association of Experimental Economists • Scientific publishing measurement & reform • Experiments on food labeling - risk - choices • Rstats • Italian Food Police honorary member
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paolocrosetto.bsky.social
Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · Jun 15
Springer-Nature launched a series of "Discover" journals that closely mimic MDPI titles -- sharing *identical* journal names, and likely similar business model.

What is going on, and why researcher will - as always - fall for it?

A 🧵

the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io/website/post...
Springer Nature Discovers MDPI – The Strain on Scientific Publishing
Home page for the paper ‘The Strain on Scientific Publishing’ by Mark A Hanson, Dan Brockington, Paolo Crosetto and Pablo Gomez Barreiro
the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
So stimulating & such a pleasure to work w/ these geniuses. Took only 11 versions to get us all aligned and agree on one call to action to stop the drain.
What we all agreed on right away: this push needs to happen via strong funder and institutional policies w/out for-profit publisher interference
aileenfyfe.bsky.social Aileen Fyfe @aileenfyfe.bsky.social · 4h
New preprint on the drain that for-profit publishers place on the scientific ecosystem. We also point out that, though it's often presented as a global problem, it's actually a Global North problem: there are parts of the world with strong diamond #OA non-profit alternatives arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
November 11, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
polecopub.bsky.social
A very recommended reading. As often in the last 60 years, a "market" thrived because public bodies/governments pushed for it
aileenfyfe.bsky.social Aileen Fyfe @aileenfyfe.bsky.social · 4h
... and the reason that for-profit journal publishers are such a feature of the UK/European/NAmerican scientific ecosystem (in particular) is... history! Commercial practices saved struggling non-profit journals in the 1950s/60s (as I've shown doi.org/10.1177/0073...), but what happened next?
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
doi.org
November 11, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
kevin-e-mueller.bsky.social
there are other interesting things in this thread, but it is worth a look to discover (or refresh your memory of) the disgusting profit margins of journal publishers, and the fact that governments don't have to accept this awful system
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 9h
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
hansonmark.bsky.social
The Drain of Scientific Publishing details very clearly how for-profit publishers making >30% profit margins have corrupted any solution the research community has attempted.

Let's cut ourselves free.

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: bit.ly/StrainQSS
Oligopoly: bit.ly/OligSciPub

12/12
The Drain of Scientific Publishing
The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science. We need the most powerful members of the research community, funders, governments and ...
arxiv.org
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
lucyces.bsky.social
Poniendo los puntos sobre las íes 👏

Beigel, F., Brockington, D., Crosetto, P., Derrick, G., Fyfe, A., Barreiro, P. G., Hanson, M. A., Haustein, S., Larivière, V., Noe, C., Pinfield, S., & Wilsdon, J. (2025). The Drain of Scientific Publishing (No. arXiv:2511.04820). arXiv. doi.org/10.48550/arX...
The Drain of Scientific Publishing
The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science. We need the most powerful members of the research community, funders, governments and ...
doi.org
November 10, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
openculture.bsky.social
3,900 Pages of Paul Klee’s Personal Notebooks Are Now Online, Highlighting His Bauhaus Teachings (1921–1931)
3,900 Pages of Paul Klee’s Personal Notebooks Are Now Online, Highlighting His Bauhaus Teachings (1921–1931)
Paul Klee led an artistic life that spanned the 19th and 20th centuries, but he kept his aesthetic sensibility tuned to the future.
www.openculture.com
November 8, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
80 download of my checklist of actionable items for any researcher to adopt to support an equitable and sustainable scholarly publishing landscape zenodo.org/records/1741...
Still need to do this myself, but I'd love to see printouts on office doors or hallways ;) #AcademicSky #OpenAccess #DiamondOA
For Equitable and sustainable scholarly publishing | Pour un édition scientifique équitable et pérenne [Checklist]
This bilingual checklist presents 13 concrete actions researchers can take to move toward a more equitable and sustainable scholarly publishing ecosystem.Each action is classified by career stage (all...
zenodo.org
November 7, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
xphilosopher.bsky.social
There’s growing evidence that something was going seriously wrong in the classic early work on cognitive dissonance

Latest revelation: The story in When Prophecy Fails seems to have been fabricated in the most egregious way

But this is not the only one…

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Debunking “When Prophecy Fails”
In 1954, Dorothy Martin predicted an apocalyptic flood and promised her followers rescue by flying saucers. When neither arrived, she recanted, her group dissolved, and efforts to proselytize ceased....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 6, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
nathlarigaldie.bsky.social
Ok, just wow. If the content of this article is right, this is depressing. We're slowly reaching the point where ~100% of what I was taught in Social Psych was either innocently wrong or plainly frauded

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Debunking “When Prophecy Fails”
In 1954, Dorothy Martin predicted an apocalyptic flood and promised her followers rescue by flying saucers. When neither arrived, she recanted, her group dissolved, and efforts to proselytize ceased....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 5, 2025 at 11:09 PM
paolocrosetto.bsky.social
Last 10 days to submit to the Winter Workshop in Behavioral and Experimental Economics of Food Consumption.

Working on experiments & food? Submit!

Laser-focused yet cozy workshop, deep in the Alps, lots of time to present & discuss, no participation fees.

Info sites.google.com/view/winterw...
November 3, 2025 at 1:33 PM
paolocrosetto.bsky.social
This coming Saturday I'll be presenting about the Strain on Scientific Publishing at a round table organized by the Italian Oncology Association.

Very good to see that MDs are taking the crisis in scientific publications seriously and are looking for paths towards a saner system.
tumorijournal.bsky.social Tumori Journal - TJ @tumorijournal.bsky.social · 9d
📅 8 NOV | #Ethics in the evaluation of scientific research quality.
AIOM and Tumori Journal reflect on an issue that seems to be urgent for scientific community. Meet the outstanting panel, join the discussion!😀

📌XXVII AIOM Congress, Rome congresso.aiom.it

@paolocrosetto.bsky.social
November 3, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
tumorijournal.bsky.social
📅 8 NOV | #Ethics in the evaluation of scientific research quality.
AIOM and Tumori Journal reflect on an issue that seems to be urgent for scientific community. Meet the outstanting panel, join the discussion!😀

📌XXVII AIOM Congress, Rome congresso.aiom.it

@paolocrosetto.bsky.social
November 2, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
chrislhayes.bsky.social
I’ve been thinking a lot about a new kind of polling I’d like to see. We have polling that measures public opinion, which is obviously important, but I’d love to see a little more empirical work on public knowledge: what do voters know about politics and policy?
October 29, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
aaronsojourner.org
Special Issue of the Journal of Industrial Organization in honor of Pat Bajari. Please share widely!
#EconSky
www2.cloud.editorialmanager.com/ijio/default...
October 28, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
matti.vuorre.com
"Traumatized Mr. Incredible" meme with "Data and code available", "After looking at data & code"
October 27, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
altmetric.com
Here's a nice example:

Coinciding with our launch of tracking Bluesky in December 2024, an article talking about the strain on scientific publishing by @hansonmark.bsky.social went viral, particularly on this platform.

direct.mit.edu/qss/a...
4/7
The strain on scientific publishing
Abstract. Scientists are increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of articles being published. The total number of articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science has grown exponentially in recent years; in 2022 the article total was ∼47% higher than in 2016, which has outpaced the limited growth—if any—in the number of practicing scientists. Thus, publication workload per scientist has increased dramatically. We define this problem as “the strain on scientific publishing.” To analyze this strain, we present five data-driven metrics showing publisher growth, processing times, and citation behaviors. We draw these data from web scrapes, and from publishers through their websites or upon request. Specific groups have disproportionately grown in their articles published per year, contributing to this strain. Some publishers enabled this growth by hosting “special issues” with reduced turnaround times. Given pressures on researchers to “publish or perish” to compete for funding, this strain was likely amplified by these offers to publish more articles. We also observed widespread year-over-year inflation of journal impact factors coinciding with this strain, which risks confusing quality signals. Such exponential growth cannot be sustained. The metrics we define here should enable this evolving conversation to reach actionable solutions to address the strain on scientific publishing.
direct.mit.edu
October 15, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
andreamatranga.bsky.social
Check this out andreamatranga.github.io/spiralnotes/
October 23, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
altibel.bsky.social
Achievement unlocked! I got invited to review a paper for one of their journals.
(I declined)
paolocrosetto.bsky.social Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · Jun 15
Springer-Nature launched a series of "Discover" journals that closely mimic MDPI titles -- sharing *identical* journal names, and likely similar business model.

What is going on, and why researcher will - as always - fall for it?

A 🧵

the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io/website/post...
Springer Nature Discovers MDPI – The Strain on Scientific Publishing
Home page for the paper ‘The Strain on Scientific Publishing’ by Mark A Hanson, Dan Brockington, Paolo Crosetto and Pablo Gomez Barreiro
the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io
October 22, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
lhaffert.bsky.social
Why do rustbelts vote radical right? Studying the German Ruhr area, @nilsblossey.bsky.social, @lstoetze.bsky.social and I show: it’s not just about deindustrialization, but also about the original industrialization. Where coal is buried deeper and mining started later, the AfD is stronger today 1/12
October 17, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
lakens.bsky.social
Very cool: Lisa Spitzer has made a deviation from preregistrations template, which you can find here: apps.leibniz-psychology.org/prp-dev/
PreReg: Deviation Template
PreReg: Deviation Template
apps.leibniz-psychology.org
October 17, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
forrt.bsky.social
REPLICATION RESEARCH, the diamond open-access journal co-hosted by FORRT and MüCOS, is now live!

🔓 Free to read and publish for everyone, with open peer review, reproducibility checks, we are pushing the boundaries of what open scholarship and fair publishing mean.

🧵
October 17, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
paolocrosetto.bsky.social
Springer-Nature launched a series of "Discover" journals that closely mimic MDPI titles -- sharing *identical* journal names, and likely similar business model.

What is going on, and why researcher will - as always - fall for it?

A 🧵

the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io/website/post...
Springer Nature Discovers MDPI – The Strain on Scientific Publishing
Home page for the paper ‘The Strain on Scientific Publishing’ by Mark A Hanson, Dan Brockington, Paolo Crosetto and Pablo Gomez Barreiro
the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io
June 15, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
jakubnowosad.com
New R package: gridmappr by Roger Beecham

It automates creating small multiple gridmap layouts by optimally placing geographic points into grid cells (inspired by Jo Wood’s Observable notebooks).

👉 github.com/rogerbeecham...

#RStats #RSpatial #DataViz #GISchat
October 15, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
aalexee.bsky.social
Thrilled to see my paper "The (Statistical) Power of Incentives" out at the Journal of the Economic Science Association. 🥳

Read it here (open access) 👉 dx.doi.org/10.1017/esa....

#Econsky
The (Statistical) Power of Incentives | Journal of the Economic Science Association | Cambridge Core
The (Statistical) Power of Incentives
dx.doi.org
October 10, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Reposted by Paolo Crosetto
matti.vuorre.com
Against Publishing: universonline.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Preprints are read, shared, and cited, yet still dismissed as incomplete until blessed by a publisher. I argue that the true measure of scholarship lies in open exchange, not in the industry’s gatekeeping of what counts as published.
October 14, 2025 at 9:16 AM