AJG position on journal fees

In the process of reviewing journals for inclusion in AJG 2021, and since the publication of the Guide, some journals have been omitted on the basis of their fee charging practices as part of their publication procedures.

The Chartered ABS position on journal fees is that a journal will not be included in the Guide if the AJG Editorial Team understands that authors are required to pay to publish in the journal on acceptance of their paper.

Such fees use a variety of names including Author Processing Charges or Publication Fees. Whatever the name given, we will not include journals which charge authors on acceptance of their papers for their paper to be published.

We do, however, include Journals in the AJG which charge a general submission fee as a way to, for example, discourage spurious submissions and to pay for reviewers. We tolerate this process because it is not linked to acceptance, simply submission. Fees on submission should precede robust and accepted scholarly standards and conventions of peer review and publishing. As such, most submitted papers are still rejected through this process.

Whilst efforts have been made during the review process to identify and exclude journals that adopt practices not accepted by the AJG, any journals currently in the AJG that do not conform to our criteria will be omitted as and when identified. The Chartered ABS takes the issue of predatory journals extremely seriously and such journals will be excluded from the AJG.

We hope that this will help in some way towards promoting better practices within the industry.

You can view the AJG 2021 here.