1. Building new bridges between research and policy during a national lockdown
Author: Annette Boaz and Kathryn Oliver
Annette Boaz and Kathryn Oliver are social scientists with expertise in production and use of evidence for, policy. In this blog, they reflect on their recent experiences putting their knowledge into practice at the heart of government during a national lockdown. They describe the significant changes they had to make to their planned programme of (face-to-face) engagement work and how it was possible to build relationships and get a significant programme of work underway online to mobilise existing evidence in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the UK government’s Areas of Research Interest framework.
The full entry can be read: Here.
2. New EU open peer review system stirs debate
Author: Éanna Kelly
The European Commission’s scientific publishing service has launched a new venue for EU research grantees to publish free-to-read results. The twist: authors, not editors, choose what they wish to publish – without the delay involved in traditional science publishing, the commission says. The Open Research Europe platform promises beneficiaries an ‘easy, high-quality peer-reviewed’ system at ‘no cost to them’. The platform, set up to speed the flow of scientific information generated from its seven-year, €85 billion Horizon Europe programme, will post original publications in all fields of science in advance of peer review. The names of the reviewers will be open, as well as their reviews. The London-based open science publisher F1000 Research will run the system, with the commission picking up the tab for article processing charges. Reaction to the new site is mixed, with some researchers highlighting the flaws of the open review method.
The full entry can be read: Here.
3. Open access comes to selective journal
Author: Rick Seltzer
Academic publisher Springer Nature has unveiled a model under which it will allow open-access publishing for researchers submitting to its prominent Nature journal and 32 primary research journals carrying the Nature brand beginning in 2021. The headline news of the open-access model for Nature has been expected since Springer last month announced a deal with Germany’s Max Planck Digital Library. The announcement is nonetheless noteworthy for the fact that Nature is a highly selective, prestigious journal – a premier title that historically has not been included in open-access agreements Springer struck with academic libraries.
The full entry can be read: Here.
4. For a hefty fee, Nature journals offer open-access publishing
Author: Diana Kwon
Academic publisher Springer Nature has announced that authors whose articles are accepted into a Nature-branded journal will have an open-access option for €9,500 from January 2021. The publisher also revealed a pilot project in which authors pay a nonrefundable assessment fee of €2,190 to determine whether a manuscript is suitable for a selection of Nature-branded journals, but acceptance is not guaranteed. If a match is found, the authors then pay the remainder of the publication charge and the paper is made open access. Most Nature titles are subscription journals, meaning that their content sits behind a paywall. Springer Nature has inked contracts with institutions to expand open-access (OA) offerings of its titles, but the Nature suite has typically been excluded. This latest move marks a shift toward making the content in those journals freely accessible to the public.
The full entry can be read: Here.
5. A world elsewhere: PLOS’s community action publishing model
Author: Joseph Esposito and Michael Clarke
PLOS, the inventor of the megajournal, is no stranger to innovation. With its announcement of Community Action Publishing (CAP), the company is now seeking to move its two highly selective Gold open access (OA) journals, PLOS Medicine and PLOS Biology, to a new model in which universities agree to underwrite the costs of publishing for their faculty, if they should choose to publish their work with PLOS. While the details of the program are interesting in themselves, of greater moment is the aim, captured in the word ‘community,’ to create a system outside the demand-driven marketplace.
The full entry can be read: Here.
6. Why your scientific presentation should not be adapted from a journal article
Author: David Rubenson
Journal articles and slide presentations are different forms of communication with different attributes, drawbacks and potentials. Both have important roles. Scientists need to recognise these differences and make presentations consistent with what they can achieve. Those differences and the steps to manage them are audience, pace, narrative, time, graphics, goals, and rewards.
The full entry can be read: Here.
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