Thursday, September 19, 2013

PLoS reaches 23% surplus. Time to lower those article processing fees?

Update Nov. 29th - according to Van Noorden in Nature, incoming CEO of PLoS Elizabeth Manicola plans on a revamp...

Public Library of Science has released their 2012 financials. Kudos to PLoS for four years of not raising article open access processing fees. However, now that the PLoS surplus has reached 23%, isn't it time to lower these fees?

Highlights from the PLoS financials:

The 2012 financial year represented a third consecutive year of sustainability for PLOS. Gross revenue grew 57% to $38.8 million (2011: $24.7 million), of which the increase in net assets was $7.15 million (2011: $3.95 million). PLOS’s expenses grew by 52% to $31.6 million (2011: $20.8 million), not least because of the increase in resources required to support the more than 26,000 articles published by the journals in 2012. This represents a 62% increase (2011: more than 16,000 articles); the total number of articles published by PLOS through 2012 was more than 68,000.