Bruce Alberts, former Editor in Chief at Science, and Catriona MacCallum, Senior Advocacy Manager PLOS, and Consulting Editor at PLOS ONE, are speaking at Publish and perish. Photo (Alberts): Tom Kochel

Publish and perish?

2015-09-30

The seminar is now available as video, see it here External link, opens in new window..

A seminar on the rapidly changing nature of scientific publishing, peer review, and evaluation.

– Join us for a day of interesting discussions of these important trends and how they impact the work of young scientists!

Date: Wednesday 30 September
Time: 09:30–15:30
Venue: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm
The seminar is free. Lunch and refreshements are included.
Registration (mandatory) is now closed as the seminar is full.
Twitter hashtag: #pubnperish

The seminar was filmed External link, opens in new window. and documented by a science writer (text to be published).

Speakers

Bruce Alberts
Former Editor in Chief at Science, former President of the National Academy of Sciences, USA

Tony Hyman
Research Group Leader and Director, The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG)

Arne Johansson
Professor in Mechanics, Vice President, the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)

Catriona MacCallum
Senior Advocacy Manager PLOS, and Consulting Editor at PLOS ONE

Tommy Ohlsson
Professor in Theoretical Physics at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)

Brandon Stell
Research Associate, CNRS, Co-Team Leader, Laboratoire de Physiologie Cérébrale
Université Paris Descartes

Programme

09.30 Coffee

10.00 Welcome!

10.10 How can a nation support excellence in scientific research and teaching?
Bruce Alberts

11.00 Publication assessment and university governance
Arne Johansson

11.30 Encouraging innovation through peer review and evaluation
Tony Hyman

12.00 Lunch

12.45 Scientific Communication on Trial
Catriona MacCallum

13.15 Open Access Publishing with arXiv
Tommy Ohlsson

13.45 Coffee

14.15 Introducing PubPeer
Brandon Stell

14.45 Panel discussion
15.30 End

Background

This year marks the 350th anniversary of the longest running scientific journal: The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (London). Already at its inception, it had the fundamental functions usually associated with scientific publishing such as registration of submission and publication dates, peer review, and means for dissemination and archiving. Today scientific publishing is more important than ever, with the number of journals rapidly growing, and the perceived success of a scientist to an increasing degree defined by scientific publications, with particular pressure to publish in so-called high-impact journals. In parallel these trends appear to put in question the value of the traditional scientific peer review, both in the publication process where newsworthiness, impact and potential for citations may trump scientific rigor, and in evaluation for tenured positions, where bibliometric indices and impact assessment tools risk reducing a young scientist’s work to a number.

Seminar

At the seminar we will discuss the rapidly changing scientific publishing landscape and its implications. How does the increasing number of journals and the increasing focus on journal impact change how science is carried out and how young scientist choose their topics and plan their research? What is the impact of entirely open and non-reviewed pre-publication online archives – are they promising new solutions to effective dissemination and open science, or of little value to young scientists when evaluations put a premium on journal impact? Is the pre-publication peer review model faltering under the increasing volume of peer review and the shrinking time and effort available for peer review? Can post-publication peer review offer a more sustainable solution? Are universities over-relying on bibliometric tools when assessing the value of their tenured researchers and when hiring new researchers?

Registration is closed

Registration is now closed as the seminar is full. Thank you for your interest in the Publish and perish seminar!