Alex Rushforth

Three challenges for scientific publishing

Today I had the pleasure to be a panelist in the session 'moving beyond journals' at the @royalsociety.org Future of Scientific Publishing conference.

I argued that scientific publishing is going through a transformation addressing the challenges of openness, curation and meaningful dialogue.

Online seminar tomorrow!

Join RoRI's Alex Rushforth and Gunnar Sivertsen for a presentation based on a recent RoRI working paper exploring how national research assessment systems are evolving across 13 countries: www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/20...

ZonMw and the Dutch Research Council have published their action plan for reforming research assessment, in line with CoARA principles.

The plan includes actions around reviewing and refining the evidence-based CV and exploring #openscience practices in grant evaluations.

doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

Dearest gentle readers,

The STI-ENID 2025 conference (3–5 Sept, Bristol) is heating up. Accepted authors have been informed, keynote reveals are imminent, and yes… Lady Whistledown will be there.

Register now or risk missing the gossip: www.stienid2025.org/registration-1
#STIENID2025

Metascience’s big tent. Some initial post-conference reflections from me & @jameswilsdon.bsky.social on lessons from #metascience2025, though there’s much still to digest.

Free to read link: www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-poli...

Judging research on its own merits: How MetaROR supports better research assessment | DORA MetaResearch Open Review (MetaROR), and other publish-review-curate platforms (e.g., Copernicus, eLife, F1000, Open Research Europe, Peer Community In) challenge the current state of scholarly publish...

Innovations in #ScholarlyCommunication and #ResponsibleResearchAssessment need to go hand in hand. New guest post by @jasonchin.bsky.social, @ludowaltman.bsky.social, and Kathryn Zeiler, editors at @metaror.bsky.social, share insights on these connections. Read more👇
sfdora.org/2025/07/08/m...

🕖 Only a few days left to apply....

Check out this exciting opportunity to join RoRI as a (senior) Research Fellow in #Metascience. Apply before 9 July 👇

A new typology of national research assessment systems: Continuity and change in 13 countries How are national systems for assessing publicly funded research evolving? What purposes do they serve and how are they designed to fulfil these? This online presentation builds on a recent working pap...

📣 Last seminar before the summer break!

@alexrushforth.bsky.social and Gunnar Sivertsen will present "A new typology of national research assessment systems: Continuity and change in 13 countries".

📅 Friday, 11.7.2025 | 3:00-4:15 PM (CEST)
📌 Online

www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/20...

You could well be right. One inspiring example is the Making and Doing Awards at the 4S conference - they have this alongside the more traditional individual awards.

"In addition to high prices the "big five" multinational ebook publishers "throttle" access to ebooks by selling them to libraries for either a limited time or a limited number of circulations — sometimes both."

Just as with academic publishing, a small number of big publishers dominate the market

Can see Grealish selection getting their crowd up for it. Not ideal.

Hello! We're the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research at the University of Manchester, and we're excited to be on Bluesky 👋

Follow us for updates from across the Institute — we can't wait to connect with you! www.mioir.manchester.ac.uk

Israel declared a free fire zone in northern Gaza, as the US did in central Vietnam. The result is the same: war crimes. Massacred civilians are declared “enemy” and units compete for higher body counts.

'Bezuinigen? Tijd voor een open access-revolutie’ - ScienceGuide Als het kabinet wil bezuinigen op hoger onderwijs, is er een logische plek om te beginnen: open access, betogen Wim Pouw en Bert Bakker.

Dutch science faces a structural budget cut of 1 billion euros—equivalent to one large university or two smaller ones. Academics are raising alarms about the potential impact.

@wimpouw.bsky.social & @bnbakker.bsky.social propose an open access revolution in the Dutch academic landscape. 1/2

One for you! @michaelmhopkins.bsky.social

He spoke last season about getting back to his levels of the treble season, and I’m thinking, is that it? No higher ceiling than that?

‪Tbh his contributions to the treble season have been overpriced by parts of the fanbase. Not hard to look good in THAT team. ‬

Saw another Kimmich link earlier - hope that’s not the extent of the ambition for January

Grealish yes, but I’m not sure who’s buying a guy on 300k a week contracted til 2027

Shirks tackles - very obvious he doesn’t want to get hurt

Agree. Waiting til the summer makes NEXT SEASON the transitional one. Meanwhile you let underwhelming opposition win the league.

A plea on behalf of journal editors everywhere..

When you receive a request to review, answer it. Declining is (from everyone's perspective) far preferable to not answering at all, which just leaves everyone - not least the author - in limbo.

You wouldn't your paper delayed. Don't delay others'.

The #DOAsummit2024 declaration -- deliberately brief, as the mighty Reggie Raju told us, so that we can remember it! Anyone can comment on the declaration, via this link: docs.google.com/forms/d/1hhH...

It started as a midfield problem but it’s become a defensive problem now. That first goal showed the GK and back four can’t do the basics at the moment.

Leiden, Protest against cuts to higher education, 11 December 2024

See also: Moises Caicedo

Snap!

Many established communities don’t publish/review for OA journals. So probably not opportunity cost of suddenly doing more reviewing for OA

Clearly more being written and submitted globally.

I still don’t get why is it so hard to find reviewers in legacy journals. Are editors not desk rejecting enough? Or are core readership of legacies not reviewing anymore?

I haven’t heard a satisfactory explanation yet for why peer reviewers can’t be found for established scholars who’ve sent work to established journals read by established communities. What’s changed in the past five years??