"11th Symposium on the Situation of Journals in the Social Sciences and Humanities" at the University of Erfurt

After a welcoming address by Frank Ettrich (University of Erfurt and editor of the Berlin Journal of Sociology), Tilman Reitz (University of Jena) gave a sociological lecture on "Open Access: Publishing Power and Counter-Strategies". The market for scientific journals is characterised by strong tendencies towards oligopolisation. Approximately 60% of all social science and humanities articles are published by only five publishing houses (Elsevier, Wiley, Springer Nature, Taylor + Francis and SAGE). The profit margins are correspondingly high. While until a few years ago the subscription prices for libraries presented them with major problems, this challenge has been solved to some extent by the DEAL strategy: the Alliance of German Science Organisations initiated the DEAL project to negotiate new contract models with journal publishers that enable the open dissemination of research results from Germany. Although this has reduced costs, it has also strengthened the oligopoly. One way out could be Diamond Open Access, i.e. open access publication without fees for researchers on the basis of university-based publication systems, or public-common partnership models.

Claudia Czingon (Economic and Social Science Institute of the Hans Böckler Foundation) and Benjamin Seyd (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) presented the results of the survey in the network of social science and humanities journals. Despite precarious situations, especially with regard to funding and recognition, satisfaction with the work as an editor or publisher is relatively high, which indicates a high level of intrinsic motivation among those involved.

Michael Geuenich (German Research Foundation), Dagmar Simon (Social Science Research Center Berlin) and Niels Taubert (Bielefeld University Library), moderated by Benjamin Seyd, discussed the topic "Scientific publication diversity – towards a new reputation system?” The trends diagnosed were increasing quantification, homogenisation and 'impactisation' within the framework of the reputation economy, as well as the change in the functions of research infrastructures through digitisation. For example, libraries today increasingly function as repositories and open access databases.

Two journals from the network were presented with their thematic focus and publication strategy: WestEnd (journal of the Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt/Main) and GENDER. Journal for Gender, Culture and Society.

The event ended with an interesting keynote by Stefan Hirschauer (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) on "Judging under observation. On the Rationality of Peer Review", in which Hirschauer presented peer review as a procedure for calibrating scarce reading time. Peer review is not a testing or measuring procedure, but generates attention for a text (which is often only really read thoroughly by reviewers), so that at the end of a peer review procedure – a judging under observation – an improvement of the research is made possible through feedback. The role of peer review – and thus the work of scientific editors of peer review journals – for research was impressively illustrated in this way.