Twenty years of the Open Access movement: A retrospective study on the relationship between publishing strategies and scientific capital of Brazilian researchers in biological science

In this study, we aim to investigate the publishing strategies adopted by the Brazilian scientific community and how they are related to the researchers’ scientific capital. The “research productivity” grant (PQ grant) is taken as an indicator of scientific capital: The greater the PQ grant a researcher receives, the greater is their scientific capital. Personal data from 6,993 researchers linked to at least one Brazilian graduate program in biological sciences were obtained through the Sucupira Platform, data on articles published from 2000 to 2019 were retrieved from the Lattes Platform, and the Directory of Open Access Journals was consulted to classify articles as Open Access (OA). Our main findings indicate that subscription-based journals are the most prevalent publishing strategy, but the proportion of OA publications is increasing over time, mainly with article processing charges (APC). We also observed that the lower the level of PQ grant, the higher the share of articles in OA journals. Finally, we observed a growing trend in the percentage of researchers with high and mid-high adherence to OA from all levels of PQ grant, but mainly with APC. Mapping the dynamics of publishing strategies can play an important step towards driving policies oriented to the promotion of OA.