APC waivers and Ukraine's publishing output in Gold OA journals: Evidence from five commercial publishers

TL;DR

This study investigates how APC waivers during the Ukraine crisis affected Ukrainian researchers' publication output in Gold OA journals from five major publishers, revealing increased participation especially in medical sciences post-2022.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on the impact of emergency APC waivers on Ukrainian research output in Gold OA journals during a period of crisis.

Findings

Post-2022 increase in Ukrainian Gold OA publications

Strong growth in medical and applied sciences

Disciplinary and publisher-specific publication patterns

Abstract

This study examines the effect of article processing charge (APC) waivers on the participation of Ukrainian researchers in fully Gold Open Access (Gold OA) journals published by the five largest academic publishers - Elsevier, SAGE, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley - during the period 2019-2024. These publishers were selected because, in response to the full-scale war launched against Ukraine in 2022, all five introduced emergency 100% APC-waiver policies for Ukrainian authors. Using bibliometric data from the Web of Science Core Collection, the study analyses publication trends in Ukrainian-authored articles in fully Gold OA journals of these publishers before and after 2022. The results show a marked post-2022 increase in Ukraine's Gold OA output, particularly in journals published by Springer Nature and Elsevier. Disciplinary and publisher-specific patterns are evident, with especially strong growth in the medical and applied sciences. The findings underscore the potential of targeted support measures during times of crisis, while also illustrating the inherent limitations of APC-based publishing models in fostering equitable scholarly communication.