Academic journals in Russia: Who should finance them?

The search for appropriate ways to finance academic periodicals in Russia has become urgent due to the lack of mechanisms for systemic support of academic publishing. The paper sums up the results of a retrospective analysis of the main funding sources for academic journals in Russia and discusses the authors’ fees policy in commercial journals. We investigate journal funding models, such as journal founder funding, subscription, and sponsorship. We find that the system of academic organizations’ funding, which has resulted from the Russian Academy of Sciences reform, hampers the growth of academic publishing in Russia. We conclude that it is necessary to combine special-purpose funds from the federal budget and founders’ funding to finance the leading journals published by academic organizations and universities. Moreover, we consider article processing charge (APC) as a promising model for academic periodicals. A significant number of “predatory” journals were revealed due to the analysis of policies and content of the Russian journals with publication fees indexed in DOAJ (n = 49) by such criteria as the amount of publication fees, main and additional paid services, the moment of payment, issue frequency, number of articles in a single issue, peer review period, indexing, English version and type of founder. The results of this analysis confirm the stereotype that the publication fee is an indicator of a “predatory” journal. Moreover, the number of journals with publication fees in Russia is not too large. At the same time, the results show the authors’ willingness to pay for the publication of papers. These can be considered potential funds that could contribute to developing high-quality academic journals if they introduce publication fees and continue to meet ethical and publishing standards. The findings are essential for making decisions on improving the system of academic periodical financing in Russia.

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