History
Our Journey: From a Simple Question to a Global Movement
Our journey at Academia Fructus Press began with a fundamental question that challenged conventional wisdom—a question that many scholars have whispered in corridors but few dared to voice openly: Should knowledge be free, or should it be paid for?
This dilemma has long troubled the academic community. On one hand, we believe that research, funded largely by public money, should be accessible to everyone. On the other hand, we recognize that quality publishing requires resources—editors, copyeditors, typesetters, platform maintenance, and long‑term digital preservation. Traditional publishing models seemed to force a false choice: either burden the authors (through high article processing charges, or APCs) or restrict the readers (through expensive subscriptions that even wealthy universities struggle to afford).
But what if the premise itself was wrong? What if the true choice is not “author pays” versus “reader pays,” but rather “excessive profit” versus “sustainable service”? That is the question we set out to answer.
The Birth of a New Idea (Early 2025)
At the beginning of the year 2025, inspired by the rapid growth of open academic infrastructures and a profound belief in the dignity of knowledge creators, our founders set out to create a new kind of academic publishing model: low‑cost, transparent, open access.
We did not seek to reject all existing models but to transcend them. We studied the successes and failures of both subscription and open access publishers. We learned from the predatory journals that exploit young researchers, and from the prestigious legacy publishers that charge libraries millions of dollars annually while paying editors and reviewers little or nothing.
The rise of platforms like OJS (Open Journal Systems), ORCID, Figshare, and various preprint servers demonstrated that technology could drastically reduce the cost of publishing while simultaneously increasing transparency, speed, and accessibility. Why should typesetting cost hundreds of dollars per paper when automated tools can do it for pennies? Why should manuscript tracking require expensive proprietary software when open source alternatives exist? These insights opened a path toward a more equitable and sustainable system—a system where the only “profit” is the advancement of science itself.
Our Dual Mission: Respect for Creators, Access for All
From the very outset, we committed ourselves to a dual mission that might seem contradictory to those accustomed to the old binary thinking: to ensure that scholars receive fair recognition for their intellectual contributions, while also guaranteeing that knowledge remains a common heritage accessible to everyone, everywhere, without financial or institutional barriers.
This balanced approach was not without its skeptics. Some argued that “recognition” is enough—that scholars are already rewarded by promotions, grants, and prestige. Others insisted that any form of access fee is unjust, and that publishing should be entirely free. We listened carefully to both sides, and we respectfully disagreed with their extremes.
Why? Because we have seen, firsthand, what happens when one side of the equation is ignored. If we value only access, we risk devaluing the labor that produces knowledge. If we value only creator rewards, we risk recreating the same elite, paywalled system that excludes half the world’s researchers. The solution is not to choose one, but to balance both.
So, by collaborating with researchers, librarians, open science advocates, and even a few brave university administrators, we developed a diversified framework that supports:
– Low‑cost APC options for those who have funding (with transparent, non‑discriminatory pricing),
– Institutional partnerships that allow universities to support publishing on behalf of their researchers without individual payments,
– Community‑funded publishing initiatives where multiple institutions or donors pool resources to cover the cost of a journal or a set of papers.
This is not a one‑size‑fits‑all model. It is a flexible, inclusive ecosystem that adapts to the reality of global research—from a well‑funded lab in Heidelberg to a solo researcher in Nairobi.
Looking Ahead
We are proud of how far we have come, but we are even more excited about the future. With every published paper, every new partner, every constructive review, and every piece of feedback from our readers, we are helping to redefine what scholarly communication can be—not as a closed guild, but as an open, lively, and fair conversation.
The road ahead is long. The incumbents are powerful. But the momentum of open science is unstoppable, and we are honoured to be part of its leading edge.
This is our past. And our future will be written together with you.