Bernd Pulverer, The EMBO Journal
Friday, 7 April 2017 at 14:00 in the Chadwick amphitheatre, EMBL Grenoble
Bernd Pulverer, The EMBO Journal
Transparent Publishing, Preprints & Open Science: how to share reproducible data
Abstract
The biosciences are witnessing a rapid growth and diversification of research. Scientific progress depends on efficient mechanisms to select, quality control, archive, share and find reliable and reproducible research. The research paper remains the predominant mode of sharing peer-reviewed research findings, and a subset of scientific journals play important roles also as a proxy for quality and impact in research assessment. I will discuss how the editorial and peer review process at highly selective journals can be reformed to assess both the interest and quality of the claims made by a researcher, and also the reliability, reproducibility and integrity of the experimental data.
I will discuss forward looking policies and publishing modalities that facilitate sharing and discoverability of research data with minimal delay, focussing on EMBO Source Data policies and technology and Preprint servers. I will discuss the promises and challenges of the nascent preprint movement in the biosciences and highlight how preprints and papers can form a continuum for fast and reliable research communication.
In times of limited funding, the pressures to publish in a subset of journals can increase dramatically. I will discuss the challenges this poses to the publication process in the context of reproducibility and scientific integrity. I will discuss how a metrics centric research assessment process can undermine the quality of the research process, highlighting the San Francisco Declaration for Research Assessment (DORA) and other initiatives.
Biography
Following undergraduate studies in Cambridge, Bernd received his PhD in 1992 from the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, London, for uncovering posttranslational regulation of the transcription factors c-Jun and c-Myc by the JNK and MAP kinases. He carried out postdoctoral research at the Ontario Cancer Institute, Toronto, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle and at the University of Innsbruck. Bernd was associate and then senior editor at Nature from 1999 until 2002 and subsequently chief editor of Nature Cell Biology. He has been the chief editor of The EMBO Journal and Head of Scientific Publications at EMBO since 2009.