#OAWeek2025: Who owns our knowledge? When knowledge becomes a commodity

The theme of Open Access Week 2025 is „Who owns our knowledge?“ This question goes far beyond copyrights or access models. It touches on the fundamental idea of science itself: knowledge is created in community, grows through exchange, and should benefit everyone.

But who really determines who can see, use, and disseminate knowledge today? And what happens when actors exploit the open nature of science to turn it into a business model? A particularly drastic example of this are so-called predatory journals.

Predatory Publishing: When Knowledge Becomes a Commodity

Predatory journals and conferences pretend to be part of open science. They advertise with buzzwords such as „open access“, „fast publication“, or „global visibility“. But behind this, there are often purely commercial interests. Researchers pay high publication fees without receiving any real value in return. Scientific quality and responsibility fall by the wayside because the usual procedures for ensuring scientific quality are lacking. As a result, researchers lose influence over the scientific context, quality, and integrity of their work.

Last year, during Open Access Week, we examined in our blog post „Scientific integrity at risk: A look at predatory publishing and conferences“ the mechanisms and risks of predatory offers. While last year’s motto, „Community over Commercialization“, focused on the commercialization of scientific communication, this year’s theme goes one step further: „Who owns our knowledge?“ also asks how researchers can maintain or regain control over their knowledge and what happens when they lose it.

Digression: Loss of control even with closed-access publications
The loss of control over knowledge also takes another form: In closed-access publications, even in renowned academic journals, research often disappears behind paywalls. Researchers are frequently required to transfer their usage rights, leaving them unable to freely decide how their work is used or shared. Knowledge thus becomes a commodity that must be paid for, rather than something accessible to everyone. While closed-access journals provide quality assurance and academic reputation, access remains limited – whereas open-access models combine these quality standards with free access and greater visibility.

A small practical note on cumulative dissertations
Anyone planning a cumulative dissertation should consider whether the articles may later be included in open access when choosing journals. Closed-access publications often make this difficult, as rights must be assigned, while reputable open-access journals or preprints facilitate access to and control over one’s own research.

Loss of control in practice

The loss is particularly visible in predatory journals:

Articles are published without genuine peer review and are therefore virtually impossible to verify scientifically.
Publications can hardly be retracted or corrected.
Research is mixed with pseudoscientific content and loses credibility.
Contract terms are often opaque or contradictory.
The damage to reputation can affect entire scientific careers.

As a result, researchers not only lose control over their publications, but the entire scientific community and society lose confidence in the reliability of knowledge. Knowledge is appropriated by commercial actors, circulates visibly, but remains unreliable and loses its value for both research and social decision-making.

Knowledge as a common good: paths to self-determination

The good news is that there are ways to stay in control. The answer to the question „Who owns our knowledge?“ cannot be „The publishers, the platforms, or the algorithms“; it must be „Our knowledge belongs to all of us.“ We share responsibility for keeping it open, verifiable, and trustworthy.

This also includes actively protecting ourselves against dubious publication offers. The following tools can help with this:

Think. Check. Submit.: International checklist for identifying reputable journals.
Compass to Publish: Online tool from the University of Liège that provides step-by-step guidance on assessing the authenticity of open access journals.
TUB information page: Information and resources on predatory publishing.

These resources empower researchers to make informed decisions and help them make conscious choices. This ensures that knowledge remains where it has been scientifically verified and can be found in the long term.

Our research work in practice

In practice, we regularly receive inquiries from researchers who have received invitations to conferences or journals and would like to obtain a second opinion on their credibility. This is exactly where our research work comes in: we examine offers in a targeted manner, thereby relieving researchers who can then concentrate on their actual work.

Our checks include:

Reviewing the history of journals and conferences for predatory tendencies.
We check whether advertised researchers are actually involved.
Contacting existing individuals: Are they aware of their alleged involvement?
Analyzing the actual implementation of the announced services.

Our Open Access team can also advise you on:

Use of tools such as Think. Check. Submit. and Compass to Publish.
Selection of suitable publication strategies and licenses.
Questions about open access funding.

This is how we support you in making informed decisions about your publications.

Conclusion

Open Access Week 2025 reminds us that knowledge is a communal asset, not a commercial product. Predatory journals demonstrate how easily this idea can be undermined – and how urgently we need critical scrutiny, transparency, and collective responsibility for the sake of research and society. Knowledge belongs to all of us. But only if we protect and shape it together.

We will be happy to advise you on Open Access

You can reach the Open Access team via mail openaccess@tuhh.de.

Please also feel free to take part in our Open Access consultation hours via Zoom (identification code: 190591) if you have questions regarding Open Access (every Friday from 10:00 am to 10:30 am).