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Open Access Publishing in Turkey: Progress, Challenges, and the Search for Equity
Turkey’s open access (OA) landscape presents an important paradox. On one hand, the country has developed a substantial publicly supported infrastructure for disseminating scholarly work without charging readers, particularly through platforms such as DergiPark. On the other hand, Turkish researchers seeking to publish in many international open access journals can face substantial article processing charges (APCs), creating financial barriers that are particularly challenging in the context of currency fluctuations and differences in institutional resources.
This contrast raises an important question: Does open access necessarily mean equitable access to publishing?
A Strong Domestic Open Access Infrastructure
One of Turkey’s major strengths is its investment in national scholarly
publishing infrastructure. DergiPark provides an important platform for Turkish
academic journals, facilitating online journal publishing and improving the
accessibility of scholarly literature.
This infrastructure demonstrates the value of public investment in scholarly communication. When journals can operate without relying heavily on reader subscriptions or high publication charges, researchers and readers can benefit from wider access to academic knowledge.
For early-career researchers and institutions with limited resources, such infrastructure can also provide an alternative to highly commercialized publishing models. However, it is important to distinguish between providing a publishing platform and ensuring that every journal hosted on that platform meets the same standards of quality, indexing, and international visibility.
The Financial Challenge of International Open Access
The situation becomes more complicated when Turkish researchers seek
publication in international OA journals.
APCs charged by major international publishers can reach thousands of US dollars, depending on the journal and publisher. For researchers whose research budgets are denominated primarily in Turkish lira, exchange-rate fluctuations can make these charges particularly difficult to absorb.
National agreements, including Read & Publish arrangements coordinated through TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM, have helped address part of this problem by allowing eligible researchers to publish open access without paying the APC individually. These agreements are an important step toward reducing financial barriers.
However, capped annual allocations remain a concern. Once an agreement’s publication quota is reached, researchers may again face APC payments or need to consider alternative journals. This creates a gap between the principle of equitable open access and the practical ability of researchers to publish under OA models.
The challenge is therefore not simply whether open access is available, but who can afford to participate in it as authors.
Institutional Inequality Matters
The financial burden of OA publishing is unlikely to be distributed
equally across Turkey’s higher education system.
Researchers working at large, well-funded universities may have access to institutional publication funds, publisher agreements, APC waivers, or dedicated research budgets. Researchers at smaller or less-resourced universities may have considerably fewer options.
This creates a potentially important form of inequality. Two researchers may have equally strong research findings, but their ability to publish those findings in a prestigious international OA journal may depend on the financial resources available through their institutions.
In this context, the debate surrounding OA should move beyond reader access and also consider author access.
An open access system that removes the paywall for readers but places substantial financial barriers in front of authors can still reproduce inequalities within the scholarly communication system.
Academic Promotion and the “Publish-or-Perish” Pressure
Academic promotion and appointment requirements add another layer to
this challenge.
Researchers are increasingly expected to demonstrate publication records in internationally recognized journals and databases. Such expectations can encourage researchers to pursue highly visible journals, including journals operating under APC-based OA models.
Publication requirements can play an important role in maintaining research quality and encouraging scholarly productivity. However, when performance expectations are combined with unequal access to research and publication funding, they may unintentionally disadvantage researchers working in less-resourced institutions.
This is particularly important for early-career academics, who may face strong pressure to build international publication records while having limited access to institutional funding for APCs.
Academic evaluation systems should therefore consider not only where researchers publish, but also the broader financial and institutional environment in which research is produced and disseminated.
What Could a More Equitable OA System Look Like?
Turkey’s experience offers several lessons for the broader open access
debate.
· First, national investment in public scholarly infrastructure should continue. Platforms such as DergiPark demonstrate how publicly supported infrastructure can improve access to scholarly communication without depending entirely on commercial publishing models.
· Second, national Read & Publish agreements could be strengthened through more predictable and adequately scaled publication allocations. Greater transparency regarding quotas, eligibility, and their utilization would also help researchers plan their publishing strategies.
· Third, APC support should be designed with institutional inequalities in mind. Rather than relying primarily on researchers’ ability to secure funding from their universities, national mechanisms could prioritize researchers from institutions with limited research budgets.
· Fourth, greater recognition should be given to high-quality journals and publishing models that do not depend on substantial APCs. Diamond OA, in which neither readers nor authors are charged, deserves continued attention as a potential complement to commercially funded OA models.
· Finally, academic promotion policies should recognize the realities of the publishing environment. Research quality, methodological rigor, scholarly contribution, and broader research impact should remain central to evaluation rather than placing disproportionate emphasis on publication venue alone.
Moving from Open Access to Equitable Access
Turkey has made significant progress in developing an open scholarly
communication ecosystem. Its domestic infrastructure demonstrates the potential
of public investment to expand access to academic knowledge, while national
agreements with international publishers provide researchers with additional
routes to OA publishing.
Yet important inequalities remain.
The future challenge is therefore not simply to increase the number of open access publications, but to build a system in which researchers from different institutional and economic backgrounds have a fair opportunity to publish their work openly.
Turkey’s experience illustrates a broader lesson for the global scholarly publishing community: open access should not be measured only by whether readers can access an article for free. It should also be evaluated by whether researchers have equitable opportunities to participate in the production and dissemination of scholarly knowledge.
Achieving that goal will require continued investment in public publishing infrastructure, more sustainable national publishing agreements, targeted financial support, and academic evaluation policies that recognize the diversity of institutional circumstances.
The ultimate objective should be an open access ecosystem that is not only open to readers, but also fair to authors.
Keywords
Open Access Scholarly Publishing Article Processing Charges (APCs) DergiPark TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM Read and Publish Agreements Academic Publishing Equity
Dr. İsmail Hakkı Tekiner received a B.Sc. degree in chemical engineering and a Ph.D. in food engineering. He currently works as an independent researcher in Turkey. His philosophical underpinnings are based on innovative multidisciplinary partnerships and novel research topics through exploratory strategies. His primary interests mainly cover food safety and sustainability, food and nutrition, and food chemistry. He has refereed international publications, editorial and professional memberships in national and international scientific societies and journals, including the International Global Harmonization Initiative (GHI). Working with international research groups is a matter of course for Dr. Tekiner. He has been involved in international projects as a researcher and project coordinator, including the Turkish-German Scientific Co-operation Programme (INTENC) and EU Horizon 2020 Era-net FOS/SUSFOOD2 “IPSUS-Climate smart food innovation using plant and seaweed proteins from upcycled sources” in progress. He also completed two projects funded by the Turkish Scientific and Research Foundation 2237-A Programme and research projects funded by Turkish Universities’ research programmes (BAP), respectively.
View All Posts by İsmail Hakkı TekinerDisclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of their affiliated institutions, the Asian Council of Science Editors (ACSE), or the Editor’s Café editorial team.
