As a regular user of ResearchGate, I'm disappointed by their decision to favor MDPI journals over numerous society journals (https://twitter.com/ResearchGate/status/1724759715358351423). Like many others, I'm considering deleting my account unless this unwise decision is reconsidered. What are your thoughts on this matter?
I do not think that this is an "unfair scientific publishing system". ResearchGate (RG) has also other cooperation with publishers, see, e.g., https://help.researchgate.net/hc/en-us/articles/14293129973649-ResearchGate-and-Wiley-partnership and https://help.researchgate.net/hc/en-us/articles/14293147809553-ResearchGate-and-Springer-Nature-partnership. See also the pages at https://help.researchgate.net/hc/en-us/sections/14292301411217-Publishers with explanations about such partnerships for users and an offer to all publishers. There are both legal and technical reasons why RG cannot simply take content from all publishers. First, the publishers have to give their permission, and for this an official agreement is needed. Second, RG cannot take the content from a publisher "by hand" (in the way authors add content to RG) - this is simply a capacity problem. There should be formats to automatically exchange content ("Metadata Harvesting"). See https://help.researchgate.net/hc/en-us/articles/14293143276177-Open-Archive-Initiative for more about this.
Thanks for your feedback, Wolfgang. But, the new agreement with MDPI publishing is quite different from others in two key aspects: (1) it promises "enhanced presence on ResearchGate" for MPDI journals which means not just permission, but making the papers from these journals more visible, and (2) MDPI's questionable activities, bordering on predatory, distinguish this publisher from others such as Wiley or Nature Springer. To me, this decision feeds on the global unfair publishing system that increases inequity among scientists from wealthy and poor countries. I had thought that one of ResearchGate's missions was to reduce this inequity.
I guess this deal was made for financial reasons. The general problem with ResearchGate is that it is free for users, but it is a private company without public financing (as far as I know). This is the same dilemma as with private scientific publishers. There are many such conflicts in science.
See also this discussion: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Do_you_plan_to_stay_on_RG_after_it_announced_partnership_with_MDPI
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