Yup, completely agree. I think research practices (and incentives for sound research practices) are starting to tilt in the right direction, though perhaps at a slower pace than I'd like.
The incentives for research absolutely needs to change, and I'm really happy that it looks like more and more people are both speaking up about it, and starting initiatives to try to improve.
We surely don't know the answer yet, but pre-registration of experiments/methods to get a guaranteed publication is one quite interesting.
But there are others, and I applaud any initiative in these areas, because it's at it core about the hardest problem of all:
How do we overcome bias in a large system under a lot of financial pressure?
It's such a worthwhile issue to pursue, but also usually quite thankless, so anyone fighting for it is doing something great even if it's in seemingly small ways!
I agree, and I'm encouraged by the rise of open access. When it comes to data science and machine learning in particular, there is a large amount of open access material, which is awesome.
Basic biology and medical research is another story. Until we see fundamental changes in how researchers are assessed, I don't see how the situation is going to change though. But change it must, and will. Eventually.
Agreed. The next step to opening up research is to make it easier. That's what we are about publicly to launch over at http://www.myire.com in the coming months. We are battle testing it with phase 2 and phase 3 clinical trials in enterprise before the launch. After the launch it'll be far easier for any researcher to do their job and to publish their work.
If you work in research and want a peak into the future email lane (at) myire dot com and I'd be happy to demo.
I agree, the solution is not a technical one, it's about money. If funding agencies require, as they should, day one free and open access, the problem will solve itself. Not without a good deal of temporary pain, but it will be solved. (I am an early career professor who has to worry about promotion - and am happy to bear the pain of such a transition.)
One positive move would be for more institutions to publicly endorse the recommendations of the Declaration on Research Assessment. It won’t solve all of the incentive problems, but it should be a step in the right direction. I wrote about it briefly here a couple of weeks ago [1].
This would be a huge leap forward. I can't blame researchers for tailoring their research to help their own careers but this should help prevent that. A null finding might not be great for the researcher but it's a win for science.
I agree with you and particularly with the funding agencies being the most effective catalysts for change. The good news is that it's working. STM publishing is moving toward open access, the momentum continues to build (most recently with Plan S) and we're moving toward a future where government-funded research will be OA. It'll still take time to get there, but I'm pretty confident that's where we'll get. And yes, that future will likely involve those funders paying a few thousand dollars per article in APCs. And that future will continue to be dominated by the large publishers, Elsevier in particular. But access will be better, so I'd call that a huge win.
I'll add that on the other hand, I have the utmost respect for Microsoft Research, which keeps churning out amazing results. I just wish it was called something else. I think I'd like the idea of a chartered research establishment, like the BBC, with a secure amount of public EU money, focusing on the future of computing, and not scrounging for grants.
What a great idea. Maybe this is what will keep corporate interests out of scientific research, as there's more transparency and diversity in funding sources. I'm willing to bet the reproducibility rate for these studies will be much higher than the ~30% average.
This absolutely needs to become part of grant requirements. The NIH is doing well (and good!) on this, and the new German government has announced that software funded by the public needs to be free and research should be open.
Exactly. I fully support the open research movement as it will drive competition, new business models and spread quality research, but the review process is probably a very challenging one to manage.
People will evenutally solve this problem parts at a time, but I wouldn't put a £1 per article price tag on it yet.
This is great. I am hoping things like this will shake the dynamics of publication-oriented credentialing and ultimately the value proposition of academia/academic research.
Oh yeah! Working at a university pays off again. I'm glad you raised that point, I was about to start commenting about the text of the article and now I realize that everyone may not have access.
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