Ah sorry, I misunderstood. Often they're indirectly government-funded - for example, in the Netherlands we have the NWO ("Dutch organisation for scientific rese

Ah sorry, I misunderstood. Often they're indirectly government-funded - for example, in the Netherlands we have the NWO ("Dutch organisation for scientific research"), which distributes government money to researchers and institutions. In the US you have e.g. the NIH. Additionally, there are private funds like the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. Funding flows from those organisations to the researchers, and from the researchers to the publishers. And from the publishers to their shareholders.