In recognition of current costs, we’re increasing the Dryad data publication fee to $150, effective January 2023.
Key points
- The fee for researchers submitting directly to Dryad, and not in affiliation with an institution or journal that covers fees on their behalf, will increase from $120 to 150.
- The increase focuses on cost-recovery, not generating a margin, and is based on an analysis of Dryad costs that was completed in July 2021. (See our latest Annual Report for information on costs).
- Between July 2021 and June 2022, over 1,700 individual researchers paid Dryad directly to publish their data. Another 126 were not asked to pay a fee on the basis that they submitted from a country included in our waiver policy or made a special request.
- Seven publishers, 17 academic societies & research organizations, and 51 institutions work with Dryad to cover costs for individuals submitting data in affiliation with them. The change does not affect our membership agreements.
- The fee was last increased in January 2016.
We’re sensitive to the fact that fees for individual researchers are a burden and create inequities. Our partnerships with journals and institutions, whereby researchers submit data to Dryad in affiliation with either one, circumvent fees for researchers altogether. Expanding these partnerships is key to alleviating this burden on individuals and maintaining an important revenue stream for Dryad.
In the meantime, to better accommodate researchers who lack funds to pay the fee for any reason, beyond and including their geographic location, we’ll expand our waiver policy so that any author may request one.
We’re prepared to reverse fees for individuals associated with journals or institutions that join Dryad within 90 days of the change taking effect. Please contact us via hello [at] datadryad [dot] org
Finally, a note on our costs: The Dryad organization is experiencing a lot of change. Our team is growing and increasing in specialism to better support the journals, institutions and researchers that entrust their data to us. We are receiving many more submissions each month, and are well-positioned to support emerging policies for public access to research data (such as those from the U.S. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and National Institutes of Health). Our focus in the last year has been on optimizing our processes and achieving cost-efficiencies, the results of which will be shared in our upcoming annual reports.
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