Completed a review article based on supervisor's request but then it cannot be published due to lack of funding Six months ago the PhD supervisor of a friend of mine asked him to write a review article. After a hard work of 4 months he finished an extensive review article. Another two months were wasted correcting the figures and text of the manuscript as the supervisor is a perfectionist and doesn't know where to stop... Well finally it's finished and now the supervisor is saying that he doesn't want to publish it as he does not have enough funds for it. Can anyone suggest what my friend could possibly do now.

Also my friend tried to find some free journals to which the supervisor didn't agree saying it not up to the standards of the group to publish in such small journal.
The supervisor of your friend is mistaken. Judging the quality of a journal by how much it charges authors* shows a blatant ignorance of how academia works in general. It makes me suspect he only publishes in expensive lower-tier OA journals. 

I would recommend that your friend finds a reputable, subscription-based journal in the field and tries to bring her/his supervisor to reason. 

Yet it might be that the supervisor is making an excuse I would then ask for the real reason why he doesn't want to publish the paper.



*I'm baffled that we have come to that. The author-pay open access scheme is hurting academic publishing more than I thought.