MIT Graduate Student Council
Graduate Student Voices Support for Scholarly Communication Reform
The MIT Graduate Student Council recently passed a resolution expressing support for campus libraries to exit big deal journal packages and calling for changes to promotion and tenure processes to move away from journal-based metrics.
Photo: Shiwei Mitchell-Wang (left) and Teddy Warner (right)
Students were moved to take action in the wake of proposed budget cuts and the threat of reduced library services, said Shiwei Mitchell-Wang, a doctoral candidate in chemical glycobiology and synthetic neurobiology at MIT who drafted the resolution.
As the library was deciding on which services to prioritize, students wanted to articulate concern about high journal subscription prices.
“Students really value in-person library services over journal contracts – especially when you can still get access to research and there is more open access mandated,” Mitchell-Wang said.
When the resolution was first introduced to the MIT Graduate Student Council, there was discussion of broadening the language to go beyond outlining financial considerations and to cover changes to hiring and promotion practices beyond journal impact factors.
“Students want mentorship, advising and education quality to be evaluated in these processes—not just which journals faculty publish in,” said Mitchell-Wang.
The final, expanded version of the Resolution on Scientific Publishing and MIT Libraries passed nearly unanimously the second time it was reviewed by the Council in March 2026. It includes language committing the student government to “work with government and non-profit entities to advocate for the transition away from the current publication system, prohibit funding for publishing with exploitative journals misaligned with MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts, and innovate new methods of communicating and evaluating scientific research.”
What began as a discussion about hard budget decisions evolved into a broader conversation about longstanding frustrations MIT grad students have with the current publishing system, said Chris Bourg, director of MIT Libraries. “What’s clear is that early-career scholars want change,” she said.
There was a strong consensus among graduate students that closer attention should be paid to scientific and scholarly merit in career advancement decisions - rather than relying on proxies of merit that are not reliable, such as journal names and metrics.
Also, students worry about how the current journal system impacts graduate education. “There is a perverse incentive on what kind of science that students can do because advisors want certain types of publications,” Mitchell-Wang said. “Some students feel it influences their research direction because they want to fit a certain journal style, but it doesn't really fit their scientific style.”
As commercial publishers rely more on Article Processing Charges, the students also realized that, absent intervention, costs will be shifting more to researchers in the future – further motivating them to take a stance on changing the broader evaluation system.
“There is definitely consensus that the current system is not sustainable.” Mitchell-Wang said.
The students were fueled in their efforts to weigh in the publishing ecosystem given other policy changes from funders. The conversations within MIT GSC specifically referenced HHMI and the Gates Foundation both recently embracing preprints as core to their open research policies [see Funders Roll Out Next Gen Open Policies], reducing concern about access to research findings.
MIT has been a leader in advocating for transformation in the scholarly communication ecosystem, adopting a framework for publisher contracts. In 2020, it went completely out of contract with Elsevier for journals, cancelling all subscriptions. [More in SPARC’s Unbundling Profile of MIT Libraries].
The library appreciates student input, Mitchell-Wang said, and he hopes the resolution will impact its work going forward supporting other open infrastructure and publishing options. The resolution encourages the library to invest in and help people to find other pathways to share their research results.
In discussing the resolution, some students initially raised concerns about accessing resources, but MIT Libraries’ plan for continuing to provide access was reassuring along with browser extensions like Unpaywall that make using publicly available copies of articles easier than ever, said former GSC President Teddy Warner, a recent PhD graduate at MIT in chemical glycobiology. Since MIT left its big deals, researchers still have access to materials they need. “People’s worst fears have not been realized,” he said.
Discussion around the MIT resolution gave the Council a chance to educate students about the profit margins of publishers, concerns about uncompensated peer review, and the burden on libraries and researchers to cover rising costs.
“People don’t always think about the financial work of the libraries and how the library pays for all the subscriptions,” Mitchell-Wang said. “It’s up to students to discuss who values which parts and what to protect.”
At MIT, graduate students have had access to administrators, who want to hear student opinions to inform their decisions, Warner said. Individual departments set policy on promotion and tenure - and some include students in the process. The graduate students hope moving forward to be able to attend department meetings to express their ideas on possible reforms based on the resolution principles.
“Collective action is needed to change a culture that values individual achievement, prestige, and competition – all of which can lead toward further privatization of knowledge,” said Bourg. “I am heartened to see this advocacy from MIT graduate students that urges us to value collaboration, public engagement, and real-world impact more than publication in prominent journals.”
Mitchell-Wang said it doesn’t make sense that some journals get so much more attention than others and that many worthy studies don’t get published because of the scarcity that top journals create.
“We recognize that academia is run on a prestige culture and being competitive,” he said. “But I think it’s a fair conversation to have about whether that reliance on prestige is good for science.”