The role of learned societies in national scholarly publishing

Abstract

This study examines the role of learned societies as publishers in Finland based on bibliographic information from two Finnish databases. We studied the share of learned societies' peer-reviewed publication channels (serials with ISSNs and book publishers with distinct ISBN roots) and outputs (journal articles, conference articles, book articles, and monographs) in Finland. We also studied the share of learned societies' open access (OA) publications. In 2018, there were 402 peer-reviewed publication channels in Finland. In 2011-2017, the number of peer-reviewed publications from scholars working in Finnish universities and published in Finland was 17,724. Learned societies publish around 70% of these channels and publications, mostly in the fields of humanities and social sciences.

Open access at the national level: A comprehensive analysis of publications by Finnish researchers

“…In this study we were able to contrast, because of the comprehensive coverage of peerreviewed outputs in VIRTA, the output of big publishers with that of the small-scale and notfor-profit journal and book publishers operating in Finland (Late, Korkeamäki, et al, 2020): Their combined output amounts to 11.6% of the Finnish universities' peer-reviewed publications. Thus, the Finnish publishers' share is comparable in size to some of the largest international commercial publishers, such as Elsevier (14.4%), Springer Nature (12.9%), Wiley-Blackwell (6.8%), and Taylor & Francis (6.6%).…”

Forecast of the Development of Russian Scientific Journals: The Publishers

“…Рынок журналов в RSCI более концентрирован, в нем меньше издательств, представленных одним журналом. Схожие закономерности наблюдаются и на издательском рынке других стран [2].…”

Who are the users of national open access journals? The case of the Finnish Journal.fi platform

“…In non-Anglophone countries, policy-makers, evaluators and also researchers may question the value of publishing in languages other than English. Consequently, national journal publishers-in Finland mostly learned societies and research institutions-need increasingly to argue for their importance to research and society in order to motivate high-quality submissions from authors, and to legitimize funding of their publishing operations and transition to open access (Late et al, 2020). Indeed, both multilingualism and open access are claimed to facilitate the dissemination of research knowledge beyond academia to support, for example, teaching, learning, enlightenment, critical debate, professional practice, innovation, and decision-making (Elsabry, 2017;Sivertsen, 2018;Zuccala, 2009).…”