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 6.10. The research community, in the UK and worldwide, is supported by systems which provide effective and high-quality channels through which they can publish and disseminate their findings, and which ensures that those findings are subject to rigorous peer review. Effective communication of quality-assured findings and results requires a series of activities that involve significant costs. In order to meet this criterion, arrangements must be in place to enable publishers (whether they are in the commercial or the not-for-profit sector) to meet the legitimate costs of peer review, production, and marketing, as well as high standards of presentation, discoverability and navigation, together with the kinds of linking and enrichment of texts (‘semantic publishing’) that researchers and other readers increasingly expect. Publishers also need to generate surpluses for investment in innovation and new services; for distribution as profits to shareholders; and—for learned societies in particular—to support scholarly (and a wide range of related) activities for the benefit of their members and the wider communities that they serve. Finally, publishers need to take account of the sustained rise—3% to 4% a year—in the number of articles submitted to and published by them.

6.11. A number of studies have attempted to assess the costs involved in publishing peer-reviewed articles in journals. A report in 2008 demonstrated that there are considerable variations in costs per article between different journals, depending on the submission numbers; delivery formats (digital-only, print-plus-digital, or print-only); indirect cost structures; the level of surpluses generated by different publishers; and, above all, the rejection rate (i.e., the relationship between the number of articles submitted for peer review and the number that are finally published). Costs per article published, therefore, tend to be much higher for major journals with high submission and rejection rates—that is, those where there is the fiercest competition among researchers to publish their articles—than for those with lower rates.

6.12. Subsequent reports also suggest that the costs for open access journals average between £1.5k and £2k, which is broadly in line with the average level of APCs paid by the Wellcome Trust in 2010, at just under £1.5k. The key point here is that no form of publishing is cost-free; and the key requirement is therefore that