In July, the National Institutes of Health released a request for information seeking public input on a proposed policy to limit allowable publication costs — the portion of grant funds researchers can use to cover journal fees, including article processing charges (APCs). These fees, which can run from hundreds to several thousand dollars per article, are the current price of making scientific work openly accessible to the public.
This request for information marks a long-overdue and necessary conversation for the future of science. While the NIH’s intention to protect taxpayer dollars and maximize the utility of grant funds is commendable, any viable solution must also confront the core dysfunctions of the scientific publication economy: the unchecked growth of publishing fees and the overreliance on unpaid peer labor. Limiting publishing costs without restructuring peer review only patches one leak while another widens.
Most scientific journals today charge APCs to make research open access. These fees are often paid from federal research grants like an NIH R01, the agency’s flagship funding mechanism that supports individual investigators for up to five years.
Researchers choose open access because it increases the visibility and impact of their work, and aligns with the principle that publicly funded science should be publicly available. The alternative — subscription-based publishing — locks findings behind paywalls, limiting access to those affiliated with well-resourced institutions or able to pay out-of-pocket.
But without guardrails, the system has grown increasingly exploitative. High publishing costs and a crumbling peer review infrastructure are symptoms of deeper structural issues that reward scientific output but undervalue the labor and resources required to sustain quality scholarship. The NIH’s RFI outlines five potential policy changes:
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Disallow all publication costs. NIH funds could no longer be used to cover any fees associated with publishing, including APCs.
Set a per‑publication cap of $2,000. Awardees could still pay publication fees — but only up to a fixed limit per paper, aligning roughly with U.S. average APCs.
Raise the cap to $3,000 for journals that compensate reviewers and have open peer review. This rewards journals that pay for peer review and publish review reports.
Limit total publication costs to 0.8% of an award, or $20,000—whichever is greater. This places a ceiling on spending across the life of the grant, allowing flexibility for higher per-article costs.
Combine both a generous per-publication cap ($6,000) and the total award cap (0.8% or $20k). This hybrid approach balances flexibility with budgetary guardrails.
In a time when science feels under strain, this move signals a rare willingness to intervene — and an opening to push for lasting reform.
The NIH’s data are telling: R01 applicants reported average anticipated publication costs between $2,565 and $3,104 per article, while APCs among U.S.-based journals hovered around $2,177. These costs often draw from already limited research budgets, disproportionately impacting early career researchers, unfunded collaborators, and scholars from less-resourced institutions.
Limiting per-publication costs (Option 2) is the most direct and equitable way to contain this problem. Allowing for $2,000 per article would still enable open-access dissemination while signaling to publishers that skyrocketing APCs will no longer be silently absorbed by federal research dollars. Even better, combining a per-publication cap with a total per-award cap (Option 5) could provide guardrails without over-policing dissemination choices.
Importantly, redirecting funds saved by capping publication costs creates a new opportunity: Researchers can reinvest in stronger community dissemination efforts — the work of making science accessible and actionable beyond academic circles. For example, spending $5,000 to publish a single scientific article that, while technically open access, remains inaccessible to most community members due to dense academic language and jargon doesn’t seem worthwhile. Those funds could be used more meaningfully: to support community forums, multilingual infographics, or partnerships with local health organizations to translate findings into formats that resonate with and directly serve the populations most impacted. These efforts, often underfunded or deprioritized, are essential for translating science into action — especially in an era where scientific credibility is under attack, research funding faces growing political scrutiny, and public trust in science is deteriorating.
That trust also depends on the peer review process — a system that is increasingly broken. If researchers value the peer review process, they must pay for it. Option 3 from the NIH suggests allowing a higher publication cap (up to $3,000) for journals that compensate reviewers at approximately $50/hour and publish reviewer comments alongside accepted papers. This is a welcome innovation — and it should be the baseline expectation, not the exception.
Peer review is a time-intensive and intellectually demanding process. Yet journals ask researchers — often early-career, minoritized, and overburdened ones — to conduct this labor for free, even as publishers profit. This has created an unsustainable system that leads to reviewer fatigue, lower quality feedback, and, increasingly, ghost reviewing.
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In addition to compensating reviewers financially, we should build mechanisms that incentivize peer review within the currency of academia itself. One idea: a token-based peer review credit system, in which researchers earn credits for reviewing manuscripts. These credits could be redeemed to offset APCs when submitting their own work.
For example, one completed start-to-finish peer review could earn a token. Authors could submit one token to receive full APC coverage for their own article. For well-funded labs with limited time, tokens could also be purchased at cost, supporting the work of those with less grant flexibility. This creates a balanced system that values time, spreads the burden, and directly connects service with benefit. While such a model could be centralized through a major funder like the NIH, it wouldn’t necessarily have to be. The key is that it be widely recognized and integrated into the infrastructure of academic publishing — whether through funders, journals, or third-party platforms.
Beyond theoretical models, real-world initiatives like Publons, ReviewerCredits, and ORCID-linked review logs are already paving the way for more transparent and reward-based systems. These platforms offer researchers digital recognition for completed reviews, often tied to specific journals and editorial boards.
However, without formal institutional or funder-level integration, they remain largely symbolic. Embedding similar tools within NIH or academic evaluation systems could help translate peer review into a more visible and valuable professional contribution.
Option 3’s inclusion of public reviewer reports is also promising. Open peer review encourages accountability, improves transparency, and demystifies the review process — especially for trainees. Journals that are willing to pay and publicly document their peer review process should be recognized as leaders in scientific integrity. This innovation is likely needed now more than ever in the face of growing scientific mistrust and threats to funding.
I encourage my fellow researchers to seize this opportunity to make their voices heard. The NIH is accepting comments on this proposal until Sept. 15.
A healthy scientific ecosystem requires fairness, transparency, and sustainability. That means saying no to exploitative publishing fees. That means compensating scientists for their labor. That means aligning incentives so that good science and good citizenship go hand in hand. And it means using the savings to finally prioritize the community dissemination efforts that make science matter.
I commend the NIH for seeking input. Let’s make this the moment we researchers stop plugging holes and start redesigning the system.
Angel Algarin, Ph.D., M.P.H., is an assistant professor at Arizona State University, where his research focuses on public health and HIV. He is an NIH K01 awardee and has reviewed for more than 30 scientific journals.
