Latin American and Caribbean consortia express their concerns about APCs

The first meeting of national consortia from Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain took place in Mexico in early September 2017. It was organized by the Ministries of Science and Technology from Mexico, Chile and Brazil and attended by representatives from ten countries responsible for negotiating with publishers for national access to scientific/research publications. IBICT (Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia) and CONICYT (Comisión nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica) –the hosting institutions of the Brazilian and Chilean ISSN Centres– participated in the meeting. A statement was issued, which expresses the concerns of the participating organizations over the costs of APCs (article publishing charges) and outlines their perspective on international discussions around flipping subscriptions to APC open access. Most notably, the consortia were in agreement that APCs will not help to reduce costs, but rather contribute to the already inflationary situation with the current international scholarly publishing system.

The declaration is online in Spanish and English.