Key Principles for Scientific Publishing: and the extent to which they are observed

In 2019, shortly after the creation of the International Science Council, its members, primarily international scientific Unions and Associations, national and regional scientific organizations including Academies and Research Councils, and international Federations and Societies, were asked to identify what they considered to be the most important contemporary issues for science. Scientific publishing was most frequently identified as the single most important issue of “policy for science” and was adopted as a priority for the ISC’s first action plan for 2019-2021. Substantive work was undertaken during 2020, including three consultation workshops with ISC members in late 2020 to gain feedback on the project. The paper concluded that reform was needed and should be based on seven key principles, with which between 80% and 90% of members concurred. A revised document was then presented for review to an expert team generously convened by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and further revised before being submitted to the ISC Governing Board, which agreed that it should be published as an ISC Report: Opening the Record of Science: making scholarly publication work for science in the digital era (doi. org/10.24948/2021.01). Subsequent discussions added an eighth principle, that scientific publishing should in some way be accountable to the scientific community. This paper summarises the eight principles that were laid before the General Assembly of the International Science Council in October 2021, when they were overwhelmingly endorsed.