This academic self-publishing platform is now closed
Founder’s Journey
I poured everything that I had been forced to learn about neoliberal academia over 20+ years into Scholar Freedom. I began with wide-eyed naivety, defended my creation against naysayers in the middle, and finally relinquished hope for change at the end. My Annual Reports track my journey of becoming and then unbecoming the Founder of the only academic self-publishing platform with the courage to argue against the “full open access (OA)” movement because it depends on the false assumption that the labour and equipment costs of university research are fully taxpayer-funded. In Australia, only 28% of research is publicly-funded and all universities perpetrate wage theft. This means for that ~70% of research produced through Australian universities, the only reason that warrants the outputs being free to the public is a philosophical one, and why Scholar Freedom was built to support open access if that’s what the authors choose. The full website explaining why Scholar Freedom was built to support university paywalls for non-publicly funded research that splits payment with authors according to their true contribution to the intellectual property (IP) when they choose not to make it ‘open access’ is now archived at the Wayback Machine.
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It’s been a wild ride bringing Scholar Freedom to life, and we wanted this startup journey to be documented! Read all about it including our key players, early adopters, and plans for platform improvements and expansion in the upcoming year.
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We thought the opportunity to FINALLY earn an uncapped amount from a site that's free or low-cost to be part of, communal in power-sharing, and does not compromise on ethics, rigour, credibility, and professionalism would sell like hot cakes. Detoxing researchers from the fear that enables their own exploitation was a step we missed. We reflect on our small wins against a tidal landscape of indoctrination, silencing, and gross and harmful power inequities.
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We launched with a simple 'less is more' design but were unexpectedly hit with criticisms of being a predatory publisher because the gaps meant they didn't know how else to make sense of us. We responded by tightening our message with court-level proof that we are not the predators, we really do care about researchers, we know exactly why we're doing what we are, and our profits are for them. Now it's time to scale! Our density is our disruption: it's message – the money belongs to the people who earned it.
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The theme for this year's report is 'lone wolves and lurking wolves'. The lone wolves are researchers committed to truth above all else, and the lurking wolves are those trying to steal our IP. Any new publishing model that is not built around merit and fairness needs to have its intent closely examined, and should not be exempt from the same scrutiny that Scholar Freedom has faced. They say that research done well brings a story to the data – I hope that you find reading my story as Founder useful for writing yours. Our Compendium has more information on why readers of research need to ALWAYS check if the research costs were FULLY taxpayer-funded, i.e. labour AND equipment.
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As we have not found an independent radically left publisher that is antigenocide to hand the baton of system reform we now begin the process of sunsetting. This means our current members can: (1) publish their outputs on Scholar Freedom but can only monetise them until 30 June 2026, OR (2) submit their manuscripts to traditional journals where they will never have the opportunity to monetise their labour, knowledge, and findings, and may pay thousands to make it ‘open access’, OR (3) paywall their work on their own website where they do not stand in solidarity with us against modern slavery. In the event that a suitable buyer is found before 30 June 2026, then all outputs in our database will remain monetisable beyond that date.