Since its inception, the open access transformation has focused largely on journal articles. While books have received more attention in recent years, other publication formats are still often overlooked. In this blog post, Wenxin Shangguan and Deborah Sielert explore the challenges and opportunities for alternative forms of scientific communication.
The English version of this blog post was first published on June 8, 2026, on the TIB blog.
“Dear Dr Musterfrau, I came across your paper and thought your work could make a real impact if shared beyond academia.”
Any researcher who publishes academic work these days is surely familiar with this kind of emails flooding their inboxes. Unlike predatory publishing, where authors are approached with quick but questionable-in-quality offers to publish their articles, the emails mentioned above concern offers in the realm of science communication for a broader audience.
Providers such as “SciPod”, “SciTube”, “Research Outreach” and the like offer to adapt research findings into popular formats like podcasts, videos or infographics. However, are these services legit? And who should pay for them?
This article puts the commercial service providers in order, discusses their alternatives, and explains why publication funds typically don’t cover the costs in this case.
Why science communication is often delegated
The expectation of research having an impact on society grows constantly. Strengthening public trust in science is emphasized in political debates. Therefore, science communication activities are considered a key aspect of knowledge transfer aimed at bridging the gap between the public and the scientific community.
Funding agencies are increasingly placing value on knowledge transfer activities and the dissemination of research results to relevant target groups. Evaluation criteria for individuals and institutions are also increasingly taking public visibility and knowledge transfer into account.
Making science accessible to non-experts requires diverse forms of publication (Elliot 2022). However, the practice can be discouraged by circumstances facing most researchers: lacking the necessary skills, time, and/or resources. Added to this is the so-called “Sagan effect” (Martinez-Conde, 2016) which may also deter active participation.
SciPod & Co.: Not “predatory”, but should be treated with caution
The mandate for knowledge transfer has created a market for service providers who reprocess and resell research findings. Typical products include short videos, podcasts, animations, or articles, which are usually published under a free license and thus available to the public. For researchers as their clients, prices for production range from 1,000 to 4,000 pounds; often, additional visibility promises are made for social media or newsletters, or they can be booked via corresponding packages.
These companies reach their clients through extensive cold emails described at the beginning, among other methods. Given the heightened awareness among many researchers regarding “predatory journals”, this understandably raises skepticism at first sight. In our assessment, while none of the service providers known to us can be clearly classified as “predatory”, some business practices may nonetheless appear dubious. Discussions on this topic among researchers are controversial. Anyone who nevertheless wishes to use such services should do so with careful consideration.
What Studies and Communities say
The topic of using these services is discussed on platforms like ResearchGate and Reddit. One user, for example, reports that communicating with their editor turned out to be so tedious that he would have preferred to do it himself in the end. Others are suspicious because information about costs wasn’t made transparent until late in the communication process with the providers, or because details regarding licenses provided are inconsistent. In addition to aggressive marketing, some providers are criticized for opaque fee structures, exaggerated visibility claims, or quality issues. On the other hand, there are also many who report positive experiences and highly satisfactory outcomes.
A study by Hamid R. Jamali (2025) surveyed 104 researchers who have used services such as researchoutreach.org or researchfutures.com. Although (overall) satisfaction with the representation of research results was high, 67 percent of the participants stated that the publication made no significant impact. Jamali therefore recommends a clear definition of goals and target audiences in advance.
Should I choose from these services? If so, how?
As with all publishing services, we recommend carefully evaluating such offers in terms of funding, licensing, reach projections, and cost-benefit assessment.
- Funding: Open Access funds at universities generally don’t cover these costs, since these don’t concern peer-reviewed first publications. Researchers should therefore make sure to secure funding through other means well in advance, so that they wouldn’t have to pay out of their own pocket.
- Licensing: For legally compliant distribution and reuse of your content, an open license (ideally CC BY) is essential. If you have any questions regarding which license to choose, we’d be happy to advise you at publikationsberatung@tib.eu.
[Note from oa.blog: For general, cross-institutional questions, the oa.helpdesk is also available as a point of contact.] - Reach & Target Audience: The choice of media format should be tailored to your target audience. You’re more likely to make a real impact by taking advantage of established formats and platforms among your own target audience, who are often more than receptive to your contribution, while rarely charging a fee. It’s worth doing some research: Which popular science podcasts, blogs, or magazines align with the topic?
Use of internal and external alternatives
As a first point of contact, researchers should reach out to the press office/public relations office of your institution. Colleges, libraries, and professional societies often provide their own platforms and formats. One example is the podcast list on the Portal for International and Interdisciplinary Legal Research: FID intRecht. The BorgNetzwerk is currently working to establish a Wikibase-based online library for academic podcasts and videos called WissKom Wiki. Through TIB AV-Portal and TIB ConRec Service, TIB offers ways to visualize research results and make them available online. Where such programs are lacking, it is worthwhile to actively encourage their development. Currently, only a few initiatives are attempting to bridge the funding gap, such as the HRA Fund of the Hamburg Research Academy.
Conclusion: Give preference to non-commercial alternatives
As diverse as they are, commercial providers’ primary pursuit is profit-driven goals that don’t always align with the values of the scientific community (transparency, openness). Overall, we recommend focusing on non-commercial alternatives for science communication, which may involve working in and with Wikipedia, public broadcasters, or community-driven initiatives. Not only are the publications freely accessible, but they are also free of charge for authors, and in some cases achieving greater visibility than commercial providers.
Literature
- Elliott, K. C. (2022). Open Science for Non-Specialists: Making Open Science Meaningful Beyond the Scientific Community. Philosophy of Science 89(5), 1013–1023. https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2022.36
- Jamali, H. (2025): Worth the Cost? Researchers’ Use and Experience With Commercial Services for Research Outreach. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication 13(1). https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.18409
- Martinez-Conde, S. (2016): Has Contemporary Academia Outgrown the Carl Sagan Effect? Journal of Neuroscience 36(7), 2077-2082. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0086-16.2016
Editorial Note
The original post on the TIB Blog was edited for its republication on the oa.blog as follows:
- Minor formatting adjustments were made to comply with blog-specific editorial standards.
- A teaser was added at the beginning.
- Links to pages and services on open-access.network were added.
Please note that, with the exception of a few minor rewording changes, the English translation follows the translation from the TIB blog.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).
