Open-access publication is not always about making publicly funded research articles freely available (Nature 495, 425; 2013). Other factors could be driving the boom in open-access publishing in scientifically emerging nations.

The Directory of Open Access Journals (go.nature.com/nsrmrb) shows that the United Kingdom has 587 open-access journals, Spain has 465, Germany has 286 and France, 185. Brazil publishes 843 — the second-highest number after the United States (1,312). India is fourth (518) and Egypt is sixth (363). Romania publishes more open-access journals than Italy (264 and 256, respectively), and Turkey, Colombia and Iran each publish more than France.

Few open-access journals from the developing world are internationally recognized, however, or listed in scientific databases such as PubMed. This omission excludes the journals from impact calculations and limits the pool of international peer-reviewers, undermining the rigour of articles and their value to the public.

Despite this, the proliferation of publications in such local open-access journals can promote researchers' careers in countries in which academic evaluation depends mainly on the number, not quality, of publications.