I think you’re getting it the wrong way around. It’s not easily understood by the general public because they have not had the years of training to accumulate specialist knowledge. The language in academic papers need to be accurate and draws on terminology that are understood by everyone in the field. Trying to translate things into layman terms would generally involve dropping/excluding some important details that matter.

It would be done if research papers are available for free all the time. However it’s not, so the public are not the intended audience, their peer professionals are.

I am studying chemistry, and for my field it's because to even understand most chemistry research nowadays requires at least a basic understanding of quantum mechanics. This is also the case of many STEM fields where math and physics deemed as advanced by the general population have to be "common sense" for a reader to understand the research papers well. Same for humanities and social sciences where some understanding of certain fields of contemporary philosophy is necessary.

Unfortunately, describing every single concept for a paper would make it balloon in scope. Ppl need to do the background research to understand the basics. Beyond that? Poor writing 😆

Misinterpretation is far more dangerous than ignorance

They hire people to translate it for everyone else when they are ready for public dissemination of information. Academic language is for other academics for the purpose of academic discourse between themselves. Academics are often terrible communicators in the first place, so I wouldn't want most of them trying to explain things to us anyways. Academic and Media literacy is a complex issue The bigger issue for me is the paywall blocking me from reading them without jumping through hoops.