Introduction What are overlay journals? Overlay journals are a disruptive concept that emerged from the academic publishing ecosystem in the last two decades. Born from the open-access revolution and nurtured by the preprint culture, overlay journals flip traditional publishing on its head. They don’t host articles; instead, they curate, review, and certify research that already … Read more
Introduction Academic journal publishing has never been easy. But as we settle into 2025, what used to be slow-moving tectonic shifts have turned into a full-blown earthquake. Publishers, editors, and scholarly communication managers are grappling with open access mandates, AI-generated submissions, shrinking funding, and the ghost of predatory publishing. The peer review system groans under … Read more
Introduction From the outside, running a scholarly journal might look like a respectable side gig for seasoned academics—review a few articles, polish some editorial notes, publish a couple of issues a year, and voilà: knowledge is served. Reality, of course, is far messier. Behind every published article lies a network of frantic email chains, delayed … Read more
Introduction Academic journals are famously sluggish. Submitting a paper can feel like tossing it into a black hole, waiting months—sometimes over a year—for a verdict that ranges from “revise and resubmit” to the dreaded “desk rejection.” This pace can be maddening for authors, especially early-career researchers on the tenure clock or those in fast-moving fields. … Read more
Introduction Academic journals have long been the gatekeepers of scholarly knowledge, shaping careers, setting research agendas, and determining which ideas gain traction in academia and beyond. For centuries, this model remained remarkably stable: researchers submitted manuscripts, peer reviewers vetted them, and publishers printed and distributed the final product, mostly to institutional libraries. Prestige followed citation … Read more