Alert: the Chinese-Swiss publisher MDPI have slipped in a massive increase in their APCs for publishing in their open access journals like Land, Environments, Resources, Arts, etc. to a minimum of chf 1000, us$994 from 1 July 2019. Now is the time to get submissions in before the deadline at end June, to attract a lower author cost.

Some not quite up to date info and an explanation by the CEO https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2019/02/13/mdpi-2019-price-increases-some-hefty-and-more-coming-in-july/

An example of the increase https://www.mdpi.com/journal/resources/apc https://www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities/apc

The obvious problem they will face is that social science and humanities [in particular] generally can't afford these prices. Some universities are part of schemes to offer waivers and discounts, but not many.

This is all leading up to the shift to OA publishing, impelled by the PlanS European-led proposals to force OA publishing for publicly funded research from 2020. https://www.coalition-s.org/

But the spirit of this good idea is being compromised by commercial publishers jacking up their prices.

There are, of course, alternatives.

Dr. Simon Batterbury | Professor of Political Ecology, LEC, Lancaster University, UK, Europe. S.batterbury@lancaster.ac.uk

Principal research fellow| School of Geography | University of Melbourne, 3010 VIC, Australia | simonpjb @ unimelb.edu.au | http://www.simonbatterbury.net