Beginning this summer, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM) will require either a current APPAM membership or payment of a submission fee to submit a manuscript to the journal. Submission fees will be $100 for professionals and $40 for students. We recognize that this is a significant change for our community and did not make this decision lightly.
Submission fees have become increasingly common across economics and social science journals. At the same time, the costs associated with producing JPAM continue to rise, while the royalties APPAM receives from Wiley, JPAM’s publisher, have steadily declined due to Open Access publishing and other industry changes. As a result, APPAM must think more broadly and strategically about sustainable revenue sources to support the organization and its programs.
In addition, the volume of submissions to JPAM has increased dramatically in recent years, particularly with the rise of low-quality submissions, including some that appear to be AI-generated. Since the emergence of widely available generative AI tools, submissions to JPAM have nearly doubled. While many AI-generated papers are desk rejected, they still require significant staff and editorial time to review and process, diverting resources away from the high-quality scholarship submitted by our members and contributors. We hope this new requirement will help reduce these low-quality submissions and preserve editorial resources for legitimate scholarly work.
At the same time, we recognize that many in our field are navigating an increasingly challenging environment marked by funding uncertainty, budget pressures, and reductions in institutional and professional support. These broader trends have also affected professional associations and academic publishing more generally, making it important for APPAM to identify sustainable ways to support its programs, conferences, and publications over the long term.
We also believe APPAM membership should carry meaningful and tangible value. Our goal is to build the broadest and most engaged policy research community possible, and we want individuals who benefit from JPAM and APPAM’s broader work to see membership as an investment in that community. If you value JPAM, we hope you will also see value in supporting APPAM through membership.
For current APPAM members, nothing about the submission process will meaningfully change. Members will simply provide proof of current membership through the APPAM member hub during manuscript submission. Non-members will have the option to either join APPAM or pay the applicable submission fee for each manuscript submitted. APPAM members may submit an unlimited number of manuscripts to JPAM without additional charge. Waivers will be available for authors from low-income countries, as well as for authors experiencing financial hardship, on a case-by-case basis.
We understand that some members of the community may have concerns about this change, and we appreciate your understanding and continued support. This decision was made not as a barrier to participation, but as a necessary step to sustain the long-term quality, accessibility, and financial viability of JPAM and APPAM. We remain committed to supporting rigorous, inclusive, and impactful policy research, and we are grateful to our members and contributors for being part of that mission.