BY ROBERT M. KAPLAN

Last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stunned the scientific community by proposing that researchers stop submitting articles to high-impact academic journals and instead publish in government-run outlets. The backlash was swift. Within a day, The Washington Post received more than four thousand comments—most of them scathing.

But buried beneath the outrage lies a long-simmering truth: Frustration with commercial academic publishing has been growing for years. Kennedy’s proposal, while surprising, could catalyze long-overdue reforms to make science more accessible and affordable for universities, researchers, students, and the public. Here’s why.

For decades, academic publishing has been dominated by a handful of large, for-profit companies. Few outside academia realize that these publishers enjoy profit margins rivaling those of the movie and music industries. In 2023, Elsevier—the largest player—posted profits of 38 percent. By comparison, one of the country’s most profitable sectors, US banks, averaged 31 percent, while newspapers and cable TV eked out margins under 2 percent.

The current publishing system is a relic of a post–World War II strategy. Vannevar Bush, science advisor to President Roosevelt, envisioned research as the engine of economic growth. He advocated for transforming select universities into research-intensive institutions. With generous federal funding—including indirect cost reimbursements—universities expanded labs and libraries, laying the foundation for modern scholarly publishing.

Initially, research findings were shared informally through letters, society meetings, and in-house publications. But commercial publishers quickly saw an opportunity. As university libraries flourished with federal support, publishers flooded the market with new journals and raised subscription prices. Over time, this became an unsustainable model. Faced with shrinking budgets, libraries began cutting back on subscriptions.

Today’s model works like this: Researchers—often funded by federal grants—conduct research and are required to give away the copyright for their work to for-profit publishers. In other words, publishers get the product of federal funding and world-class scholarly writing without spending much of anything. Peer reviewers, also unpaid, add value by vetting and improving manuscripts. Then, publishers sell, now at inflated prices, the finished product to the same universities that gave them the product for free.

Commercial publishers justified their costs, citing high production expenses.  But in the digital era, many publishers no longer need to pay for printing, binding, storage, and shipping costs, sending profit margins even higher.

As libraries struggled to pay for subscriptions, the burden shifted directly to scholars. Researchers who want their work to be freely accessible must pay “open access” fees or “author processing charges” (APCs)—often ranging from $1,300 to $11,000. These charges disproportionately hurt scholars at underfunded institutions or in disciplines that receive less external funding, reinforcing structural inequities in who gets published and cited.

Meanwhile, peer review is buckling under the strain. When I was a journal editor, we’d request reviews from five peers and typically secure at least three. Today, editors send out fifteen to twenty invitations and hope to get two completed reviewers. Scholars are increasingly reluctant to donate their time to support a for-profit system that expects them to work for free.

Three major problems demand change: First, declining quality and participation in peer review undermine trust in published findings. Second, high open-access fees create a system where only well-funded researchers can afford visibility. And, third,  publishers engage in opaque pricing negotiations, charging different institutions wildly different rates for the same content.

Reforming this system will take bold steps. These should include compensating peer reviewers, capping or waiving author fees, and eliminating private publisher ownership of taxpayer-funded research.

We also need to explore alternatives. One option is for government agencies like the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation to sponsor high-quality, peer-reviewed journals. These agencies already operate rigorous peer-review systems. Editors and production staff could be paid, and researchers competing for federal funding could be required to complete a modest number of reviews annually as a condition of grant eligibility or employment.

Other inefficiencies deserve attention. Authors spend countless hours reformatting manuscripts for different journals. One estimate suggests $230 million worth of researchers’ time is wasted annually on formatting alone. Outdated submission portals compound the problem.

A centralized submission system—developed by a consortium of funding agencies—could streamline the publication process, reduce costs, and restore control to academic institutions and research sponsors. While the transition would require upfront investment, the long-term savings could far outweigh current spending on subscriptions and publication fees.

We don’t yet know whether Kennedy’s proposal is the right solution. But we do know the current system is failing. Like many of my colleagues, I have serious reservations about several of RFK Jr.’s ideas—but this one deserves serious consideration.

Why should the public care? Because this isn’t just about academic turf wars. The future of science—and the knowledge that drives innovation, medicine, and public policy—is at stake. As public trust in science wanes and research funding stagnates, we risk slower progress, diminished global competitiveness, and poorer health outcomes.

The current model rewards publishers far more than it serves the public. It’s time to ask whether there’s a better way—and to begin building it.

Robert M. Kaplan is a senior scholar at Stanford University’s Clinical Excellence Research Center and Distinguished Research Professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He is a former senior administrator at the US Department of Health and Human Services and a past editor-in-chief of two academic journals.