The scientific community is increasingly aware of the profound challenges associated with research evaluation, particularly the reliance on quantitative journal metrics such as the impact factor as proxies for scientific quality. These practices have entrenched a system where researchers are compelled to publish in high-cost, high-impact journals to advance their careers, often at the expense of broader scientific contributions. Despite the growing adoption of initiatives like DORA (https://sfdora.org), Plan S (https://www.coalition-s.org), CoARA (https://coara.eu), or PEER Community (https://peercommunityin.org), which aim to reform research assessment and promote open science, progress has been slow, and deeply-ingrained evaluation schemes still dominate. Thus, initiatives that support dissemination of knowledge (outreach, extension), data curation and sharing, research in non-academic contexts (which is more “messy”, difficult to conduct) and in response to real-world needs and with impact is not sufficiently valued. These issues are compounded by the dominance of commercial publishers, whose exorbitant article processing charges (APCs) and profit-driven models exploit the academic community creating inequalities, fostering an unsustainable and unfair publishing system that threatens the very preservation and dissemination of scholarly knowledge.

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