An innovation‐oriented publication system

‘Innovation’ has become a keyword in many countries; to support innovation, a better publication system for academic articles is needed. In this article, a proposed new system is discussed. The current title‐based contract between publishers and libraries has caused a serious information gap, particularly in small institutes. In the new model, called the ‘beneficiary‐pays’ model, sales are at the individual article level, and not that of the journal as a whole. In addition, the publication cost of poorly accessed articles is borne mainly by authors, whereas that of frequently used articles is paid mainly by readers. The feasibility of the new model is discussed. The two currently practised models, ‘author‐pays’ and ‘reader‐pays’, are compared with the ‘beneficiary‐pays’ model. It is doubtful if journals operating under the ‘author–pays’ open access model can ever acquire the reputation based on quality that is needed to motivate authors to pay high enough fees to finance the entire publication cost. The new variant of the user‐pays model, in which libraries pay not for a subscription, but in proportion to the number of times the journal is accessed, is a fairer business model; however, the beneficiary‐pays model is more sensitive to high‐impact works.