Transparency in animal journal accounts –
breakdown of journal Income to the animal consortium

The animal consortium comprising BSAS, EAAP and INRAE owns the 3 journals of animal, animal – open space and animal – science proceedings. Two years ago, we agreed with the scientific community to make our journals gold open access and as a result to charge authors an article processing charge (APC). We also decided to move to Elsevier because of their experience in open access publishing. We receive a royalty of 45% from each article published.  Also, Elsevier provide funds to the consortium to support the editorial process equivalent to 11% of gross journal income.

The first call for the consortium from its income is to pay the editorial costs of the journals.  These include honoraria for the editors-in-chief and editors and for the costs of editorial office.  Administration is kept to a minimum.  The remainder is donated to partners. The percentages are shown below.

The proportion donated to the partners is used to support their scientific activities. This is divided into the activities detailed below.

In addition, the partners provide considerable “in kind” services to support the editorial process and the administration and promotion of the journals.

The animal consortium is committed to supporting animal scientists through its share of the income from the APC paid by authors.