Have you read about the breakthrough in the Covid-19 vaccine? Me neither, because I can not afford the information. These days, with so much going on in the world, it is necessary to be able to access the information that researchers work so hard to learn. They are working for the greater good of our society as a whole, yet putting a huge financial barrier between common people and earth-shattering information. Academic research should be free for everyone because most people do not have the money to pay for it, researchers are paid to do the research, and the public needs more than shortened free versions of these research projects to help us be more educated about what is happening across the world right now.
The first reason academic research should be free is that the public needs access to the information. Realistically, most people do not have the money to pay for a full academic research paper reporting the latest findings on Covid-19, climate change, or any other major issue. Important worldwide issues are being studied around the clock, yet the average person only receives the same tired paraphrased information that unreliable biased news stations gave out or that they saw on Instagram. During the global pandemic of Covid-19, financial barriers to academic research prove especially intrusive on common people's right to be informed and educated.
Now, more than ever, people need to educate each other to lessen the fatalities and spread of Covid-19. We need to know what we can do to help stop the problems now or to help prevent tragedies from happening in the future. Without access to the knowledge, the public is getting the shortened versions of the research with only some of the details; influencers on the news or other media platforms are only spreading their opinion on the topic or their interpretation of whatever they read. As Micheal Eisen said, “the current system slows science by slowing communication of work, slows it by limiting the number of people who can access information”. An example of this would be the fact that everyone does not have access to the information about covid-19 and that so many people are running around not social distancing due to lack of proper information and to compensate for their ignorance
Secondly, journal publishers should not be allowed to charge high prices for subscriptions to access academic research because most researchers work for public labs or those run by schools; they are already being paid by those employers. Most of these researchers are working for a lab and with a team of other researchers that all clock in and get paid for the work they do. Both researchers and publishers are getting paid multiple times throughout the process of producing and distributing academic research papers. As stated in “Should All Research Papers Be Free?”, big-time publishers are making upwards of $10 billion a year on information that is required for common people to live productively in today's society. Why should I have to pay for information on how to keep my family safe from this terrifying virus, when you already made money off of the information? Why should I not have access to new findings on climate change, when the researchers have already cashed their check from their company for writing the paper? According to Kate Murphy, the author of “Should All Research Papers Be Free?”, “Realistically, only scientists at really big, well-funded universities in the developed world have full access to published research” leaving access to knowledge in the hands of only a few fields of interest is problematic; it drives an education gap between common middle-class people and the researchers, that only becomes harder and harder to balance.
Though I strongly believe that academic research should be free, I can also see where they are coming from when pricing the information so high. These researchers work their whole life to write these academic papers and spend a ton of money on schooling to become qualified to do this intense research. Because they put so much effort into learning and configuring the information into an academic paper, it is valid that they want to make a ton of money off of it. However, even though I understand that the hours put into the research deserves recognition and reward, overall, I still believe that it should be free. That is partially true because they are already getting paid by their employers, but most importantly common people need access to some of the academic research to safely and productively live life.
In conclusion, as a group of uneducated individuals, the entire population of the world has the right to access academic research. Researchers are already paid for their work by their employers; the financial barrier to academic research prohibits growth as a community, as well as reduces global health safety. As a lower-middle-class individual with a fear of whatever the world will throw at us next, I feel like I deserve the same information that any wealthy person can afford, or what libraries charge millions for.
References
Murphy, Kate. Should All Research Papers Be Free? 12 Mar. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/opinion/sunday/should-all-research-papers-be-free.html.