News: Academic Publishing Weekly

RFK Jr. criticizes medical journals, former Register of Copyrights files lawsuit, and global OA deals

Posted on May 30, 2025 in News

RFK Jr. Targets “Corrupt” Medical Journals

In a recent episode of the “Ultimate Human” podcast, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), made a case against what he terms “corrupt” medical journals. In particular, Kennedy targeted the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and The Lancet. Politico reports that Kennedy plans for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to create its own journals due to the aforementioned publications including “studies funded and approved by pharmaceutical companies.” Kennedy warned, “Unless those journals change dramatically, we are going to stop NIH scientists from publishing in them and we’re going to create our own journals in-house.” However, Politico shared that NIH director Jay Bhattacharya holds an opposing view in favor of academic freedom. The Washington Post also had coverage, highlighting comments from Kennedy and perspectives from academics who fear restricting publications to Kennedy-approved NIH journals “would delegitimize taxpayer-funded research.”

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OUP Announces AI Deal and JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services Reveals its Managing Director

Oxford University Press (OUP) is working with Hum to pilot AI assistant Alchemist Review. Described as a “part of a human-led editorial review process,” the pilot centers on using Alchemist Review to “automatically extract key manuscript insights, including central claims, methodology assessment, citation validation, and research originality evaluation.” Turning to ITHAKA, vice-president of organizational strategy Roger Schonfeld will now serve as managing director for JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services. Schonfeld commented, “I believe so strongly in the potential of JSTOR Digital Stewardship to help the library, archives, and museum professionals caring for collections to do their work more effectively and to take on some of the most persistent, difficult challenges they face.”

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Trump’s Border Policies Impact Academic Conferences and Former Register of Copyrights Files Federal Lawsuit

APW readers will recall that Shira Perlmutter was recently fired from her position at the U.S. Copyright Office. In a new development, Perlmutter is filing a federal lawsuit “challenging her removal from office and seeking reinstatement.” A key concern addressed in the complaint is that the president does not have the ability to fire the Register of Copyrights; instead, that power rests with the Librarian of Congress. The suit also calls for Robert Newlen to serve as the acting Librarian of Congress rather than Todd Blanche, as the “Federal Vacancies Reform Act only authorizes the president to fill temporary vacancies in executive agencies.” Next, Nature reports that a growing number of US academic conferences are being cancelled or relocated. As Nature underscored, “Organizers of these meetings say that tougher rules around visas and border control…are discouraging international scholars from attending events on US soil.” For instance, some conferences are moving to Canada or introducing hybrid attendance options. Nonetheless, Nature revealed that The American Chemical Society, American Physical Society, and The American Society for Microbiology do not have relocation plans.

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New White Paper on Research Integrity and Analyzing Publisher Operational Data

Springer Nature has published a new white paper on research integrity. The paper reveals that despite widespread global support for training on research integrity, “access to such training is uneven and few participants are required to demonstrate understanding of the training material.” The white paper also finds that post-grads and early-career researchers are most often targeted for training. Interestingly, “countries with the lowest training access…also report the fewest retractions.” Next up, Christos Petrou, founder and Chief Analyst at Scholarly Intelligence, made a case for the importance of examining operational data. Looking at data from Hindawi, PLOS ONE, and Frontiers in Oncology, Petrou argues that issues at the journals could have been avoided or better managed. As Petrou underlines, “Turnaround time performance, queues, and the editorial team’s output should be assessed side-by-side regularly to identify issues early and rectify them before it is too late.”

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International OA: T&F Partnership in Mexico and Wiley Agreement in Hong Kong

Taylor & Francis (T&F) is entering its first transformative agreement in Mexico. Through a new partnership with Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), UNAM researchers will be able to read and publish open access in over 2,400 T&F hybrid and fully-OA journals. The OA agreement will run for three years. Next, Wiley is working overseas with Hong Kong’s Joint University Librarians Advisory Committee (JULAC). Wiley and JULAC will expand their original 2023 agreement with the addition of an eighth member this year, the Education University of Hong Kong. Affiliated researchers are able to publish OA in “nearly 2,000 [of Wiley’s] hybrid and gold open access journals.” Wiley also shared that JULAC’s “open access output in Wiley journals grew from 30% in 2022 to over 70% in 2024.”

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ACLS Awards Finalists and PKP Begins Registration for its Annual General Meeting

Twenty finalists have been revealed for the 2025 ACLS Open Access Book Prizes and Arcadia Open Access Publishing Awards. The awards will be conferred this fall, where four authors will receive the ACLS Open Access Book Prize and four publishers will be given the Arcadia Open Access Publishing Award. Finalists include monographs from several university presses, such as the University of Washington Press, University Press of Florida, and the University of California Press, among others. In other news, the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is accepting registrations for its 2025 Annual General Meeting (AGM). According to PKP, attendees can expect to learn more about “the latest in open scholarly publishing, connect with the community, and shape the future of open access.” The meeting is scheduled for June 17th and will be recorded.

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