On Open Access, APCs, and Authorial Intellectual Sovereignty
An Institutional Statement from HibriMind
Through this statement, HibriMind establishes the principles that will govern the selection of journals and platforms for the publication of its scientific work.
Scientific work produced by Joaquim Santos Albino and by research projects associated with HibriMind will not be submitted to journals in which publication is obligatorily conditional upon the payment of an Article Processing Charge — APC by the author or the author’s institution.
This decision does not result from financial incapacity. Nor does it constitute opposition to open access to scientific knowledge.
It arises from a political and commercial disagreement with a model in which researchers produce the scientific asset, bear the costs of its creation, provide it to an editorial organisation without compensation and, following its approval, are additionally treated as paying customers of the publication process.
Open access is not synonymous with author payment
HibriMind supports the principle of open access.
Scientific knowledge should be able to circulate, be read, discussed, criticised, and used without necessarily remaining behind economic barriers imposed upon readers.
Open access does not, however, require that publication costs be transferred to authors.
Publishing models financed by universities, scientific societies, public institutions, foundations, consortia, libraries, and other structures can provide free access to readers without charging researchers for publication.
We therefore reject the automatic identification of:
open access
with
author pays.
The openness of knowledge is a scientific principle. Mandatory author payment is only one possible commercial model — and not one we choose to accept.
Scientific articles possess value of their own
We recognise that editorial activity involves real costs.
Manuscript management, peer-review coordination, integrity control, editing, typesetting, identifier registration, archiving, indexing, and the maintenance of digital platforms require human, technical, and financial resources.
Scientific articles also possess value.
Before a manuscript reaches a journal, the author has already borne the costs of:
- the research;
- the time dedicated to observation and study;
- conceptual development;
- analysis;
- writing;
- revision;
- intellectual responsibility;
- reputational risk;
- and, frequently, the material costs of the research itself.
An article is not a valueless object asking a journal for the favour of being allowed to exist.
It is the central asset without which a scientific journal has no content, identity, citations, metrics, readership, or institutional relevance.
We therefore do not accept a model that fully prices the economic value of editorial infrastructure while treating scientific work as a free input to which an additional payment obligation is attached.
Editorial acceptance is also recognition of value
When a journal accepts an article following editorial assessment and peer review, it explicitly declares that the work possesses sufficient quality, relevance, and utility to become part of its scientific corpus.
Such a decision does not guarantee that the article will become highly cited, widely recognised, or commercially significant.
It does, however, confirm that the journal itself considers the work capable of adding editorial value to its publication record.
The relationship is therefore not unilateral.
The journal provides infrastructure, editorial certification, and circulation capacity.
The author provides scientific content, originality, intellectual responsibility, and the potential impact upon which the existence and reputation of the journal itself depend.
Publication should be understood as an exchange of value between two parties, not as the author’s purchase of a legitimacy service.
What an APC actually purchases
An APC may finance the processing and publication of a manuscript.
It cannot guarantee:
- recognition by the scientific field;
- readership among relevant researchers;
- citations;
- incorporation of a construct into the literature;
- the creation of collaborations;
- influence upon future research;
- or lasting institutional validation.
When such consequences emerge, their primary source lies in:
- the quality of the article;
- the usefulness of the hypothesis;
- the strength of the argument;
- the capacity of the work to generate new questions;
- the author’s communication efforts;
- and the reception produced by the scientific community.
A journal may provide the stage.
It cannot produce, through invoicing, the recognition that only the work itself and the scientific field can construct.
HibriMind will therefore not pay for a procedural transaction presented as though it contained, in itself, the final scientific value sought by the author.
Eligible journals and publishing models
HibriMind will prioritise:
- diamond open-access journals that are free to authors and readers;
- journals funded by scientific societies, universities, or public institutions;
- hybrid journals in which conventional publication does not require mandatory author payment;
- subscription journals that permit the lawful deposit of preprints or accepted manuscripts in repositories;
- public scientific repositories that protect intellectual priority, preservation, and access;
- editorial models based upon a balanced exchange of value.
Open-access publication may continue to be selected when its financing does not obligatorily depend upon payment by the author as a condition for publishing an accepted article.
Our position is not a request for a waiver
We will not request financial waivers on the basis of an alleged inability to pay when the real objection is political and commercial.
The ability to pay does not make the transaction acceptable.
An individual waiver might eliminate the cost of one specific article, but it would not resolve the disagreement with a model that transforms the producer of the principal scientific asset into the customer of the organisation receiving that asset.
This policy does not seek exceptional treatment.
It defines a negotiating boundary.
Independence in editorial selection
A journal has the right to assess whether an article deserves to become part of its publication record.
The author has the same right to assess whether the journal, its institutional model, and its commercial conditions deserve to receive the work.
Peer review does not transform the relationship into a unilateral concession of legitimacy.
Selection is reciprocal:
the journal evaluates the article;
the author evaluates the journal.
HibriMind does not depend upon any particular publication to justify the existence of its scientific objects. Preprints, repositories, DOI registration, independent platforms, and public circulation can preserve and communicate the work while an appropriate editorial relationship is sought.
Publication in a journal should add certification, scientific dialogue, and circulation.
It should not become a purchase of recognition.
Final principle
This policy is not directed against any specific publisher.
It applies to any model in which the publication of an accepted article is obligatorily dependent upon payment of an APC by the author or by the institution that produced the work.
Our position may be summarised as follows:
We do not reject open access.
We do not deny the real costs of editorial activity.
We do not demand that journals pay authors.
We do, however, reject a model that assigns full economic value to editorial infrastructure, no economic value to the article sustaining that infrastructure, and requires the producer of the article to finance its incorporation into the publisher’s product.
The material ability to pay does not imply acceptance of the transaction.
This is a policy of editorial independence, intellectual sovereignty, and commercial coherence.