Balancing principles and practices: Disciplinary differences in Croatian researchers’ attitudes to open-access publishing.

Background: Researchers’ attitudes to, and use of, open-access publishing are shaped by many factors, including the characteristics of scientific disciplines – whether STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine) or SSH (Social Sciences and Humanities) – and various micro-characteristics of the environment in which the researchers operate. Objectives: To analyse the attitudes of Croatian authors to open-access (OA) publish-ing and to explore disciplinary differences between researchers in STEM and those in SSH. Methods: Croatian researchers from both groups – STEM and SSH – were surveyed at the beginning of 2023. The online survey comprised 18 questions covering gen-eral attitudes towards OA, OA publishing models, the pay-to-publish option, and the criteria for choosing publication outlets. Results: Out of 1042 researchers who responded to the survey, the analysis focused on the 763 (a response rate of about 5%) who fully completed the questionnaire. The majority of respondents expressed support for OA publishing and believed that it was beneficial to research and education. However, their attitudes towards specific ben-efits and shortcomings of OA publishing showed significant disciplinary differences: researchers in SSH were more convinced that OA enables timely distribution of new knowledge and makes it more visible, whereas researchers in STEM were more con-cerned about the impact of OA on the further commercialization of scientific pub-lishing and about questionable peer review standards often associated with OA. In selecting a journal for publication, the respondents were motivated primarily by the journal’s reputation. However, researchers in STEM tended to prioritize the journal’s quantitative metrics, whereas researchers in SSH considered such practical aspects as the time taken by a journal to publish and its acceptance rate to be more important. Differences between the two categories of researchers in their attitudes towards pub-lishing in exclusively pay-to-publish journals were statistically significant: research-ers in STEM were more receptive to that model whereas those in SSH were opposed to publication fees or article processing charges, even if they were paid not by authors themselves but by their employers, funders, or other entities. Conclusion: Researchers in STEM and those in SSH did not differ significantly in their general attitude towards OA publishing. The differences, when present, stemmed partly from the characteristics of scientific disciplines and partly from differences in the criteria for promotions. Researchers in STEM published significantly more often in international pay-to-publish OA journals, whereas researchers in SSH published significantly more often in national diamond OA journals. Continued state finan-cial support to national diamond OA journals, together with making available more funds to publish in international OA journals, will be crucial to maintaining the cur-rent level of OA publishing in Croatia.