SciPost

𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗱𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗔𝗣𝗖𝘀 Today's Open Access publishing landscape is very polluted and unhealthy: ❌ APCs (Article Processing Charges) dominate, ❌ predatory profit-making thrives, ❌ in financial dealings, academic institutions are manifestly being outplayed by private corporations. The consequences include large-scale damage to library budgets, depleted research budgets, and curtailed careers of researchers. SciPost would like to re-empower the academic side in this battle for Open Access, by offering an alternative designed by and optimized purely for academic interests. Our business model can be summarized by the following: 𝘞𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴, 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘪𝘵; 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘤 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘖𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴. Said otherwise, our system is academia's antidote to APCs. https://lnkd.in/e9r8Hkqv

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵? Last week, I participated in the International Conference on Reproducibility in Condensed Matter Physics, organised by the Pittsburgh Quantum Institute. It was fascinating to hear different perspectives on the topic from such a diverse group of people: researchers, funding agencies, publishers and science journalists all gathered to discuss the biggest challenges in making research more easily reproducible and replicable. While the discussion was focused on condensed matter physics, many of these challenges are general to all research fields or at least very similar across disciplines. I feel honoured to have been invited to give a talk. I discussed the role that academic publishers play in enabling reproducibility, and how SciPost's policies are a great step forward. After all, open science practices make it much easier to reproduce and replicate scientific results. I was particularly happy to point out how SciPost's peer-witnessed refereeing process allows to tackle the reproducibility issue much earlier and more openly than traditional peer-review, as all referee reports are publicly visible from the beginning, 𝑏𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 any publication decision is made. It also allows the entire scientific community to give their opinions on a manuscript in the form of volunteered referee reports. Why wait until after a paper is published to find all the issues with it? The talks were recorded and are available on YouTube. You can find mine at https://lnkd.in/e7RuZpQS. Take a look at the other talks and panel discussions as well! They are quite illuminating and show a side of research that is seldom discussed. A big thanks to the PQI for the opportunity to share my perspectives on the matter!