The Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on Scholarly Publishing in China

Abstract

This paper describes actions recently taken by the government, scholarly publish-ers, and researchers to face the COVID-19 challenge in China. By promulgating new policies and funding new programs, the Chinese government at all levels has provided huge support for research on COVID-19. Guided by the new policies, Chinese scholarly book publishers have published 124 new titles on the subject of the coronavirus. Journal publishers have put out numerous calls for papers and launched open access platforms for COVID-19 research. Chinese researchers have produced 2021 English-language papers and 2837 Chinese papers on COVID-19. These activities have the potential to affect scholarly publishing in China and around the world in multiple ways: 1) by establishing a more reasonable academic evaluation system in China; 2) by bringing about a more balanced relationship between Chinese scholarly publishers’ profit motive and their commitment to social welfare; and 3) by altering the communication channels that Chinese re-searchers use and the publishing choices they make.