Oligopolies and scientific publication: the search for impact in Latin America

This article investigates the publishers of Latin American scientific production. The data collected on the Web of Science in the years of 2014 to 2016 show 251,312 articles in 11,965 journals, mostly by commercial publishers (56.48%), among which Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and the Sage Group stand out. These institutions concentrate the largest volume of titles and articles in the Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Physical Sciences, and Technology. In the Social Sciences and in Arts & Humanities, university publishers in the region stand out. The investment in publication is discussed when estimating the values of publication fees in titles with the largest number of articles. The conclusion points to the relevance of regional university publishing for publication in mainstream titles in fields relegated by the Web of Science and its role in promoting open access via platinum. It points out the strategies of large commercial publishers to keep up with demands of scientific openness without losing the market.