academic publishing: unfiltered and uncensored.

↪ Mentioned recently in


 a Nature News article


 .

As you may know, a

 starting


 grant

is a multi-year grant that allows a researcher to set up their own lab. It often includes their own salaries and those of 1-3 PhD students/Postdocs, as well as funds for running costs.

Sliding labs

There was another lab working on our “favorite” protein. Not in our building, and not even in our time zone but our questions and models were quite similar. We knew of them through the usual channels: their publications, conference talks. And I do believe they knew of our extensive work too. So when their next paper came out, it was surprising to see that none of our lab’s work was cited. Their omission was not an error.

The politics of citing papers

✒️

 
 
 Editor's Note:
 
 

Today's guest post was written by

 
 Catharina Sänger
 


 
 .
 

With a curious mind and a passport full of lab stamps, Catharina has explored science across the globe. She studied Biochemistry in Frankfurt, Germany, including research projects in Boston and Melbourne, before moving toward Molecular Biology for her PhD at ETH Zurich.

Ich bin Anna - Part I

When I first started my PhD in France, I couldn’t help but address my PI with the formal “you” in french (“

 vous

”), instead of the informal “you” (“

 tu

”). She was very quick to tell me to use the informal form. It took some getting used to, but I stuck to it.

Welcome to the family, call me Professor

Disclaimer

I will speak from my own experience and from what I know the most — the case of

 being a (European) cisgender woman in academia

. I don’t claim to represent or fully understand the struggles of transgender women or other genders in this article.

 Everything: The Weight on Your Shoulders of Multiple Expectations


 An Invisible Pressure

Women in academia constantly feel an

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once - or Being a Woman in Science

Ich bin Anna - Part II

Open Science (OS) is a movement that aims to bring about a change to the academic publishing system. Yet, despite being around for over 30 years, it has had relatively limited success. Traditional publishers still dominate the landscape, article processing charges have made publishing less equitable and the whole system is straining under the pressure of increased numbers of papers and a reduced reviewer pool.

The loss of community in open science: a sign of a failing movement?

…

gotcha! You clicked because the title sounded extraordinary, revolutionary, amazing — didn’t it? And for a while, I found myself reacting the same way you just did. Then, spending a good hour reading an article, only to realize there was no real solution inside. Just less bold conclusions, weak predictions even. Some articles are like that — they promise a lot in the title but deliver very little.

We finally found a radical and straightforward solution to revolutionize academic publishing!

Being a researcher implies a long stretch of studies at the university to specialize in a certain field. To me personally, it felt like I just kept studying and studying, year after year, and… here I am.  One day, when I was 18 I went to the university and I am still there. I have come to realize that I never really mentally switched from being a student to being a professional or having a job.

Spoiler: there is no end to this

So far we have dived into the historical origins of the peer review concept and the earliest attempts at an external referee system used by the Royal Society. Even in this early exploration, we have encountered issues with peer review that persist today.  The first part of this series concluded with the beginnings of peer review, but we still hadn’t arrived at peer review as we know it in the 21st century.

A potted history of peer review - Part 2

I know you are conditioned to think that what you are researching has to be novel.  But let’s think about it for a second.

The cult of novelty

In the 20

 th

century, Tom Clancy’s espionage novels became so popular that his publisher started hiring ghostwriters to respond to the popular demand. But in science, such a thing would be unthinkable, right? No one should contribute to a research paper and not receive their due credit. In peer reviewing, however… Everyone in academia knows it happens, but it’s treated like the problem that-shall-not-be-named.

Reviewer #2 Was... A PhD Student

“So, what experiment should we do next?”

asks the student.  And two different tabs open up side to side in your mind. Tab 1: Taking a stroll in your field In this tab, there are no real rules. You are wandering on the signaling pathways, thinking back to the intersections that you encountered before and at the same time, looking for new ones that could appear in the continuation of this little walk.

The split-screen mind of the researcher

How to catch a predator in the academic publisher quagmire.

 Dear esteemed Professor Waltho,


 I would like to take the privilege to invite you to contribute your research/discoveries to our overly open access journal. Simply email your manuscript as an attachment to below email...

This is a typical opening from one of countless spam emails that flood the inboxes of scientists worldwide every day.

Predatory journals mirror the flaws in academic publishing.

Before starting - what is Omics Data?

Omics data represent massive volumes of information on genomes, epigenomes, transcriptomes — you name it. They’ve become a favorite among researchers, reviewers, and publishers. But at what cost? I’m not even talking about the huge financial investments it takes to generate good quality data with proper replicates.

FAIR and Square? The Challenges of Ethical Omics Data Sharing

We all know this person. Or we are this person.

You troubleshoot broken connections in the lab, fix the department printer, teach undergrads how to use the Nanodrop and pH-meter,

 and

share all your best Excel hacks. Congratulations: you're the Swiss Army knife of your lab. But guess what?

Beyond Useful: When Being the Swiss Knife Backfires

Peer review is a staple of science, a seemingly inescapable barrier that every researcher must cross in order to share their work with the world. The internet is awash with complaints about Reviewer #2 and long, drawn out review processes. Despite this, most academics believe peer review to be a gold standard process that protects the scientific record from poor quality studies.

A potted history of peer review - Part 1

Two years ago at a conference, I was talking to a professor whom I deeply respect, telling him that I honestly do not know where my

 home

is. I left the country I grew up in when I was 18, spent 11 years in another one pursuing my studies, moved again to a new country to get the postdoc experience I wanted, and here I was 7 years later, moving yet again to another country for academic reasons.

Academic nomadism and impostor syndrome

Sam Van Gele

Publishing Open Access (OA) has always been something important to me. It stems from my utopian belief that science should be for everyone and that the funders (taxpayers) should have access to it. Most of my publications are Open Access, something I was somewhat proud of as a novice researcher.

Open Access ≠ Open Access - Navigating the License Alphabet

At times, critique could be mistaken as criticism, even though it’s not meant to be. Still, even critique is difficult to deal with.  With time, I learned to ask “W

 hat is the intention behind this comment?

” to avoid unnecessary arguments.  I don’t guarantee that it always works.

How to survive reviewers' comments. No, it's a question.

Luís Oliveira

Some time ago, at a friend’s party, a conversation came up about the peer-reviewing process. I know what you might be thinking, my dear reader. “Wow, this guy must be fun at parties”. But really, I am. I promise I was not enforcing an academic topic on a non-academic audience. I think… Crap, now I’m not sure. This friend of mine – it is important to mention – is not an academic.

But Who Reviews the Reviewer?

For my very first blog post on this platform, I got inspired by the name of the blog support system itself—

 Ghost

. It made me reflect on a phenomenon that many early-career researchers quietly experience: ghost and ghosted authorship in scientific publications. Let’s plot the scene: You’re a PhD student or a young postdoc, and your manuscript is finally ready for submission.

The Ghost / Ghosted Authorship Dilemma

Leal Oburoglu

Something I never even questioned when starting my PhD has now become a daily struggle in my mind.  When I first contributed to a scientific article in 2012, I remember that picking the name I will use as an author was a substantial decision (“Do I add my middle name?...”). After all, I did not want to be confused with another scientist later on during my career (yes, I am now aware of ORCID).  Sounds like an unimportant decision.

What’s in an “academic” name?

If you are reading this, you have definitely heard of “Publish or Perish” culture. With the advent of predatory journals and journal hijacking scams, this saying has been modified to “Publish high-impact or Perish” in the last decade. There came a point in my career, around the fourth year of my postdoc, when a PI (whom I respect profoundly) told me that I needed a paper.  “Any paper.”

Publish and try not to perish in the process

Citations are crucial to academia. For me, they’re the literal way of saying, “I stand on the shoulders of giants.” They allow us to build on existing knowledge, floor by floor, forming an ever-growing tower. As a PhD student, I’ve just begun laying my own bricks in this structure. So when my work got cited for the first time, I was thrilled.

Wild citations and where to find them

The “publish or perish” culture pushes researchers to publish papers (regardless of the state of their research) for career survival. Academic jobs are tied to people’s publication records; and although change is happening, it is at a glacial pace. Since the system is gamified in this way, people are tempted to play. And they play to “win”.  This leads to many

 side effects

that distort the way science is done.

Symptomatic treatment of a broken system

Six years ago, during a science communication session at a conference, we were given the task to explain “why we do what we do” to people unfamiliar with our research. While having this chat with a fellow postdoc, I told him I’m curious about how the human body works, and that is why I became a scientist.

Every rockstar scientist has an origin story

Just like the anonymous commenter on a reddit thread or a social media post, I think the anonymous reviewer suffers from the “disinhibition effect” that comes with knowing that they cannot be identified. A reviewer “persona” is created and suddenly gives them the option to be especially harsh (sometimes cruel…). Would they have made the same comment face to face, at a conference, for example?

The disinhibited reviewer

Last Friday, thousands of scientists protested against US government cuts on research funding with the

 Stand up for Science

movement.  There were more than 30 demonstrations all over the US, and a handful in other countries (several of them taking place in France). So, what does it mean to “Stand up for Science”?

Stand up for Science...and also for the way it's shared

Act I: Enchantment It usually starts early on.  You are looking at something. A couple of bugs on the ground. A star in the sky. The veins on a leaf. The stream of bubbles in your soda. You are just observing. But then you start wondering.

 What exactly is this?

You are curious, you want to know more.

 How does it work? Is it known?

You ask questions.. that lead to more questions.

You are a scientist: a play in three acts

I was recently at a conference – the friends-and-family kind. International, sure, but mostly populated by academically 'related' researchers. A chance to get all together, talk about new projects, showcase current research, see if there is a possibility for interesting collaborations. A nice sense of community, lighthearted and caring.  This conference also had a student track.

The Flattening Soul-Crushing Effect of Cradling Yourself in a Bubble

Impact factor.

The power of this term is unparalleled in academia. The word “impact” by itself is already so profoundly heavy. And second in line to it, would be

 tenure.

Law &amp; disorder in academic publishing

The first time I heard the expression "low hanging fruit" in science, I got excited. Simple projects that seem to be straightforward – seemingly untouched by other scientists. Projects you could pluck right off the tree and bite into, reaping the succulent fruity juice of success. In three months it would be wrapped up. An easy publication.

The perils of low hanging fruit

If doing your job requires constant applications to keep doing it, is that really a “job”?  Why do we need to keep “auditioning” for work we’re already performing? Let’s first agree that there isn’t a typical career trajectory in academia. But there are some recurring steps one usually has to go through.

 Getting the job

There are definitely some unwritten laws about getting jobs in academia.

Stranger than Fiction

Meet Larry, the Scientific Cat  Larry — a fluffy, slightly overweight cat — has achieved what many postdocs or even professors only dream of: becoming the most cited “author” in his field. Obviously, Larry has never written a word or attended a conference. His main activities? Napping, demanding food, and scratching furnitures. Yet, there he is — the most cited author without lifting a paw.How Did We Get Here?

Purr-fect Citations: How a Cat Became the World’s Most Cited Academic

By the end of my PhD, I was somewhat disillusioned by the way scientific research worked and decided to pick a field that could open up a (small) door to industry, if I ever decided to take that route one day. (I was very naive about that, but that is a story for another time.) After some digging, I could find two labs focusing on the relatively narrow question I wanted to pursue for my postdoc.

Are you winning?

The rise of Large Language Models in academic writing.

Postdoctoral researcher Dr Verena Haage was reviewing a manuscript for a reputable neuroscience journal when she began to notice unusual inconsistencies. Haage noticed that some figures had strange proportions, or illogical experimental timepoints, and that figures were arranged in a senseless order.

ChatGPT et al.

The current system of recognition in academia is built on a single pillar; publishing. Career advancement is dependent on how much and where you publish. Assessment of “quality” is based on extremely poor proxies, such as impact factor or journal name. There are a range of costs to this system ranging from financial to personal.

 Financial

The financial costs of publishing are very well documented.

The costs of publishing: financial, career and personal

We’ve all peeked at that “Received, Revised, Accepted” section of a paper and instantly regretted it. Those dates often read less like a timeline and more like an archaeological record. And that, kids, is why one should NEVER ask a PhD student about the timings of their PhD. From all variables that define the fate of a PhD, one of the harder ones to control is indeed… the peer reviewing process (wow, on a blog that writes about peer reviewing.

Accepted: Today | Received: Do You Really Want to Know?

✒️

 
 
 Editor's Note:
 
 

Today's guest post was written by

 
 Altynai Mambetova
 

. Altynai holds a Master's degree in Data Science from the University of Manchester. Her background spans data journalism to data art, and in her work, she transforms textual data into impactful solutions through research publications.

the modern peer