In July 2023, The CPH editorial team and the overwhelming majority of the editorial board resigned and left their commercial publisher and owner in order to set up the Journal of Critical Public Health: a diamond open access journal that is published by CPHN (ISSN: 3033-3997). The resignation of the CPH editorial board was part of a movement away from commercial publishers, in protest at their increasing profits from the free labour of academics and control over scholarly publications. You can read the press release here.
The first issue of the Journal of Critical Public Health was published in May 2024 and includes an editorial describing its mission.
The Board resignation letter – in protest at the impossibility of holding to our values as the publisher sought to erode control and the role of the editorial board – was widely covered on social media, and by higher education, health and publishing news outlets, including:
- Public Knowledge Project Taylor &Francis editorial team walks! An independent journal is born with OJS
- Times Higher Education Health Journal Latest to lose editorial Board
- Retraction Watch Editors of public health journal resign over differences with publisher
- Khrono Det har vært masseflukt på masseflukt fra tidsskrifter de siste månedene. [There has been mass exodus upon mass exodus from journals in recent months]
- Nature Journal editors are resigning en masse
- Open Access Network Critical Public Health: protest against APCs at Taylor & Francis
- International Science Council A promising year ahead for scientific publishing
- Ochsner Journal Blog Another editorial board resigns over high publishing fees
- University of Aberdeen Library Blog Change ahead for profiteering publishers?