Wu Shulin
Chairman of the Publishers Association of China
In recent years, with the continuous increase of state support for academic publishing, the development of academic publishing in the mainland is facing good opportunities. In this context, we should seriously study and summarize the experience of international and domestic academic publishing, accurately grasp the attributes of academic publishing, pay attention to international and domestic progress and trends, and promote the prosperity and development of academic publishing.
The development of academic publishing in China is facing good opportunities
First, the Party Central Committee attaches great importance to pointing out the direction for building a strong publishing country. In November 2018, the fifth meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform adopted the Opinions on Deepening Reform and Cultivating World-Class Scientific and Technological Journals (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions), pointing out: Accelerate the construction of world-class scientific and technological journals and consolidate the scientific and technological and cultural foundation for entering the world's scientific and technological powers. In August 2019, the Opinions were officially released. In September 2019, the China Association for Science and Technology and other seven departments jointly organized the "China Science and Technology Journals Excellence Action Plan". In October 2020, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China deliberated and adopted the "Proposal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-term Goals for 2035 Years", proposing: building a high-end exchange platform for national scientific research papers and scientific and technological information; and building an open platform for unified sharing of national data to ensure national data security. On May 18, 2021, the Central Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Science and Technology issued the Opinions on Promoting the Prosperity and Development of Academic Journals. The intensive promulgation of these policies has pointed out the direction for the development of academic publishing in the new era and created a favorable environment.
Second, rapid economic and social development and huge economic scale provide a solid foundation. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the total GDP of the mainland jumped from 0.37 trillion yuan to 100 trillion yuan from 1978 to 2020, an actual increase of more than 269 times. The substantial improvement of comprehensive national strength is the premise and foundation for the rapid development of the publishing industry.
Third, the overall prosperity and development of education provides good human resource conditions. At present, the number of college students in the mainland is more than 40 million, 218 million people have received higher education, and the number of doctoral students in the mainland has ranked among the top in the world. The improvement of education level has not only nurtured the vast number of readers for the mainland's publishing industry, but also provided a steady stream of authors for content production.
Fourth, the steady growth of R&D investment provides an inexhaustible source of content for building a publishing powerhouse. Since the beginning of reform and opening up, the mainland has implemented the basic national policy of rejuvenating the country through science and education, scientific research has flourished and developed, and the achievements in scientific research and innovation have been continuously increased, which has not only promoted economic and social development, but also provided important content resources for the prosperity of publishing. In recent years, China's R&D spending has grown significantly, from 89.6 billion yuan in 2000 to 2,439.3 billion yuan in 2020, ranking second in the world, second only to the United States.
Fifth, the huge number of papers produced provides a realistic basis for building a publishing powerhouse. According to the statistics of the Scopus database, the overall volume of all disciplines in 2019 was the same as that of the United States, and after 2019, China surpassed the United States; at the same time, China's 2019 global high cited 1% of papers accounted for the second place in the world.
Changes in the countries with the highest overall publication volume in the whole discipline in the past 10 years. Scopus/SciVal database, Retrieved on: 2021-08-23
Sixth, a sound publishing system and accumulated publishing experience provide an important guarantee. Since the reform and opening up, the mainland publishing industry itself has made great progress, established a relatively complete publishing system, and initially adapted to the mainland's economic and social development. At present, more than 1,800 kinds of newspapers are published every year; nearly 500,000 kinds of books are published, of which more than 200,000 kinds of new books are published; and more than 10,000 kinds of periodicals are published. Through the implementation of the five-year plan (plan) published successively, the plan published a series of key books reflecting the politics, economy, science and technology, culture, education and social life of contemporary China.
Research summarizes the experience of international and domestic academic publishing
Accurately grasp the attributes of academic publishing
Experience in the history of the development of world academic publishing
The development and evolution of modern academic publishing over the past 350 years have brought us enlightenment:
First, academic publishing is produced in the context of the increasing importance of scientific and technological cultural innovation. Its important social function is to publish innovative achievements and promote innovative development, and academic journals should publish the results of ideological innovation, scientific discovery, technological progress, and management experience in the process of scientific research and economic and social development.
Second, academic publishing adheres to the spirit of science, the quality of academic publishing and the operation of the market. At present, the world's highest level academic journals tend to be the highest priced or the highest in terms of article processing fees (APCs), and the criterion for trade-offs is innovation and academic quality.
Third, the interrelationship between academic publishing, R&D investment, and economic development. From the perspective of the world's major economies, most of the GDP is used for R&D investment, and 1% to 2% of R&D investment is used for academic publishing.
Fourth, high-level academic publishing was international from the outset. World academic publishing shifts with the transfer of economic and scientific research centers. The World Center for Academic Publishing, first in Italy, later moved to France, the United Kingdom, and now in the United States. China should not lose the possible opportunity of economic and social development to become a center of academic publishing.
Fifth, academic publishing has strict scientific norms. The publication process of academic journal papers has been deeply integrated into scientific research and economic development, and with the advancement of information technology, it has become interactive, convenient and indispensable.
Sixth, academic publishing is an important position and platform for a country to win the right to speak and win respect in the world, because scientific discourse and academic discourse can often overcome ideological obstacles.
Seventh, whether the academic publishing atmosphere is normal or not reflects the atmosphere of the academic and cultural circles, as well as the social atmosphere. Whether the academic atmosphere and cultural atmosphere are good or not is related to the contemporary era and affects the future.
Experience in the development of the mainland's publishing industry since the reform and opening up
In terms of content production, we consciously regard the dissemination of all outstanding ideological and cultural achievements in ancient and modern China and abroad as an important function of publishing, which is an important experience of the mainland becoming a publishing power since the reform and opening up. It is necessary to "adhere to the use of the past for the present and the use of foreign countries for the Chinese, integrate various resources, and constantly promote knowledge innovation, theoretical innovation, and method innovation", and "persist in not forgetting the original, absorbing foreign countries, and facing the future".
First, don't forget the original. Since the founding of New China, especially since the beginning of reform and opening up, we have systematically and comprehensively sorted out the ideological and cultural heritage of the mainland. At the beginning of reform and opening up, the "State Council Ancient Books Collation and Publication Planning Group" was restored. On the basis of the cultural census, more than 240,000 ancient books and books have been formed, and a planned collation work has been carried out. In the past 70 years, especially in the past 40 years, we have compiled and published more than 35,000 Chinese classics, planned and implemented a number of ancient book publishing projects, such as the Twenty-Four Histories, rare book reconstruction project, and promoted the in-depth study of Chinese culture with the times, such as the Commentaries of Chinese Thinkers (200 volumes).
Second, absorb the outside. In the past hundred years, especially in the past 40 years, China has comprehensively, systematically and accurately translated and published excellent cultural classics from all over the world, eagerly studying, studying and drawing on Western scientific and technological culture. At present, almost all important classics and masterpieces of various disciplines and schools from ancient Greece to the contemporary world have been translated into Chinese, such as the Commercial Press's "Chinese Translation of World Masterpieces" (more than 800 kinds), the Shanghai Century Publishing Group's "Series of Contemporary Political Academic Works" and "International Political Relations Series", etc., and the translation and publication of "The Complete Works of Plato", "The Complete Works of Shakespeare", "The Complete Works of Einstein", "Memoirs of Churchill" and so on. Every year, China introduces more than 15,000 kinds of foreign book copyrights, and many books are published in Chinese and English at the same time.
Third, look to the future. The development of the mainland's publishing industry is inseparable from a series of far-sighted strategic deployments, including formulating documents, clarifying guidelines and policies, formulating plans, providing a good environment, cultivating talents and other important aspects.
Accurately grasp the attributes of academic publishing
International and domestic academic publishing experience tells us that academic publishing is an organic part of scientific research, an important field of cultural work, and the core plate of the cultural industry.
Pay attention to international and domestic developments and trends
Promote the prosperity and development of academic publishing
First, pay attention to new advances in digital technology. Revolutionary advances in information technology provide us with an opportunity to improve the level of publishing. The application of artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain has made great changes in the concept, management method, carrier form, communication mode, operation process, and service mode of publishing, and academic publishing in the mainland should keep up with the latest trend of technological development.
Second, the concentration of international academic publishing is increasing. The internationally renowned large publishing groups represented by Springer Nature and Elsevier have published the world's largest number of academic journals, have a series of famous journal brands and formed a huge number of journal groups, and in recent years, the trend of academic journals gathering more and more large publishers has become more and more obvious.
Third, the impact of open science on the publishing industry. The transformation of traditional high-quality journals to OA (open access) indicates recognition of the OA publishing model. For example, in 2020, Springer Nature announced that the Nature series of journals could implement an open access policy. That same year, Elsevier announced that Cell Press's journal would offer open access options to authors. Based on the Scopus database, comparing the number of OA papers between China and other major scientific and technological paper producers in the past 10 years, the results show that in the past 10 years, the number of Chinese OA papers has advanced from 4th to 2nd in the world, and gradually opened the gap with the second group. In addition, in 2020, Chinese authors published 168376 English papers in global OA journals, of which 6924 were published in Chinese OA journals, which means that chinese OA journals can only carry 4.1% of Chinese OA papers, suggesting that the mainland should increase its efforts to create English OA journals.
Publications by Chinese authors in English papers in global and Chinese journals. Scopus Database, Retrieved on: 2021-08-23
Chinese academic publishing should have lofty intentions
World history has repeatedly proved that with political changes, ideological emancipation and major scientific and technological innovations, the economic and social development will often gradually make a country or region become the center of the world economy, and the formation of the economic center will further promote the prosperity and development of culture and science and technology. Today, when the mainland has made great economic and social development, how to grasp the opportunity of the possible world academic publishing center deserves our in-depth consideration.
At present, professional publishing has experienced the development path from paper publishing to online databases and digital decision-making tools, and has formed a mature modern academic publishing process. We must not only conscientiously study and learn from the advanced experience of international academic publishing, but also realistically sum up and analyze the experience and problems of domestic academic publishing since the reform and opening up, fully understand the important significance of academic publishing in promoting scientific and technological innovation and economic and social development, take the improvement of the level of publication of scientific and technological journals on the mainland as a major event, and continuously improve the level of academic publishing on the mainland to better serve the national strategy of scientific and technological innovation and provide strong support for the mainland's high-level scientific and technological self-reliance. In the process of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, the establishment of a relatively complete and participating in international competition of the publishing system, for the Chinese economy, science and technology, cultural development and the construction of a community of human destiny, Chinese publishers should have such a pursuit and intention.
Original ▼
WU Shulin. Improve the level of academic publishing and serve the national science and technology innovation strategy. Chinese Science Bulletin, 2022, 67(3): 231-235
Source | Chinese Science Magazine
Edit | Jessica