We will show you some of the MADNESS in publishing Science today. Science is a very NOBLE thing. Yet, Science is a rather expensive business. Read this short article for having a feel for it The Financial Cost of Doing Science. Only a fraction of companies can afford real science. Most use scientific discoveries and related inventions from experts working at universities.
In this month’s video, we are going to have a look at what can be wrong in publishing science today. By watching this video, you will understand how it all started and how it is today. Then you can do your own search and find out how it got here, which is even more INSANE!
Science, because it is inherently expensive and ultimately paid by the taxpayer, should have, as the primary focus, humanity as a whole. This is far from being so. Science remains something off-limits for most ordinary people. Even if they could have access to the scientific output, they won’t be able to grasp the jargon.
The question asks: have we really leapt forward since the time of The Royal Society, which employed Robert Hook as the first scientist in human history?
The answer to this query is complex. It is YES from the standpoint that many more people can get a good education and, potentially, become very good scientists. NO, because since the time of Robert Hook the World population has literally exploded. In a sizable portion of the World, the majority of people do not have access to basic things such as food, clean water, waste disposal facilities, health care, etc. Let alone have a chance of getting a university education. Not to mention becoming a scientist.
Few players dominate the business of publishing scientific papers. For more detailed info on this aspect, have look at this YouTube video Should Knowledge Be Free?. Some of these are private ventures. And of many of those which are not totally private, they are still run as if they were a private company. Their main customers are scientists. However, scientists are many and they are rather spread out across the globe. However, most scientists gather in research centres and universities. And here is where the publishing companies make tons of bucks. They target universities with lucrative deals to access the publishers’ collections of journals for annual fees running into millions of dollars.
As you will learn from this month’s video, when you publish a paper you have to transfer the copyright to the publisher. This means that from that point onwards and for 70 years after your death, the publisher can make money out of your work. You will also learn from the video that the taxpayer has already foot the bill related to your work. Now the taxpayer (which is you as well!) needs to pay to ‘read’ the paper that was paid already for being produced.
That is how INSANE has become publishing Science today. You have something you produced in order to share; you give it away to publishers because you need a published paper; and, later you need to pay to have it! The same is for your university. Just think of how many papers colleagues at your university produce every year!
If you want to buy a copy of your paper outside of the university agreements with the publishers, it can cost you between 25 and 30 dollars, at least.
Faced with this dire situation, what should we do?
Well, as you will hear from the last part of the video, try and target a society. There are many smaller publishers out there who operate out of society. They have a very different way to do business and you will hear an example from my experience in the last part of the video.
This is how you can make a difference. Waiting that the whole scientific community wakes up to this shamble and starts reorganising things. At the moment, big publishers through their armies of journal editors have a strong influence on the main research topics that will get funded. And the only topics that get published are among this latter bunch! Another aspect of the MADNESS in publishing Science today.
Let’s make this matter known to the scientific community so we grow a sense of urgency to look at alternatives. Please share this short article with as many people as you can. Many thanks!
In the video, we mention how important is to keep close to your PhD supervisor. Why you do not check out this other video in our series PhD student supervisor relationship w/o its problems.
You can find other videos related to Coaching the PhD on the following YouTube channel:
