Over the holiday weekend, all members of Elsevier’s Journal of Human Evolution (JHE) editorial board resigned “with deep sadness and regret,” according to Retraction Watch, which helped provide an online PDF of the editors’ full statement. This is the 20th mass resignation of a scientific journal since 2023 over a variety of issues, according to Retraction Watch, many in response to controversial changes in the business model used by the scientific publishing industry. , “wrote the board members in a statement. “The editors who have managed the journal for the past 38 years have invested a lot of time and energy to make JHE the leading journal in paleoanthropological research and remain faithful and loyal to the journal and our authors long after the term finished. At [associate editors] have been loyal and faithful. We all care deeply about our journal, our discipline, and our academic community; However, we found that we could no longer work with Elsevier in good conscience. This includes removing support for copy editors and special issue editors, leaving editor boards to handle these tasks. When the board expressed the need for copy editors, Elsevier’s response, he said, “is to maintain that editors should not be concerned with language, grammar, readability, consistency, or accuracy of nomenclature or proper formatting.” There is also the main restructuring of the editorial board carried out with the aim of reducing the number of associate editors to more than half, which “will result in fewer AEs handling papers, and In addition, there are plans to create a third-level editorial board that is generally used in the capacity of figures, after Elsevier” unilaterally take control” of the board’s structure in 2023 by requiring all associate editors to renew their contracts annually—which the board believes undermines editorial independence and integrity. outsourcing, and in 2023 Elsevier begins using AI during production without informing the board, causing many style and formatting errors as well as changing the version of the paper that has been accepted and formatted by the editor. “The AI process is constantly being used and reformatting submitted manuscripts regularly to change meaning and format and requires extensive author and editor oversight during the proof-of-concept stage.” as well as broad open access journals like Scientific Reports. Not many journal authors can afford these fees, “which is contrary to the journal’s (and Elsevier’s) promise of equity and inclusiveness,” the editors wrote. Liverpool John Moores University) and Andrea Taylor (Touro University California College of Osteopathic Medicine) who ended the dual-editor model that had been in place since 1986. When Grabowki and Taylor protested, they were told the model could only remain if they took a 50 percent cut in loss
