On the 10-12 May, YAE vice-chairs, Scott Bremer and Katalin Solymosi were invited to participate in the ‘Publishing in Academia: Digital Challenges’ symposium at the Wenner-Gren Centre in Stockholm.
This symposium was co-organised by the HERCulES group of the Academia Europaea (AE) and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, bringing together an international group of 30-40 people active in various organisations engaging with academic publishing; from university academics and librarians, to commercial publishers, advocates for open science, academies and non-governmental organisations.
The symposium was a unique opportunity to go deep into conversations about developments in academic publishing, which many scholars are having around their water-coolers. Interestingly, while the symposium pieced together highly diverse perspectives, very many common themes emerged. Attendees see similar challenges emerging on the horizon, and put forward diverse ways of addressing these challenges.
One section – organised and chaired by previous YAE chair, Marcel Swart, member of the HERCulES group of AE – focused on the repercussions of these publishing developments for early- and mid-career researchers, where Scott Bremer from the YAE spoke alongside Marina Rantanen Modéer from the Marie Curie Alumni Association and Pil Maria Saugmann from EuroDoc.
10 publishing pitfalls
YAE vice-chair Scott Bremer’s talk ranged broadly over 10 publishing pitfalls that he mapped after canvasing some YAE members, including: (i) discerning predatory publishing; (ii) open access and the burden of article processing charges; (iii) burgeoning publication volumes; (iv) the messiness associated with article pre-prints; (v) redefining reward metrics when publishing is organised under such metrics; (vi) trends to open data without guidelines or infrastructure; (vii) the roles of artificial intelligence; (viii) discomfort around strategic self-advancing practices; (ix) challenges to publishing interdisciplinary research; and (x) becoming accustomed to diversifying review platforms. Scott argued that early career researchers work under certain conditions that exacerbate these challenges for them.
The closing panel of the event featured among others, YAE Advisory Council member, Alban Kellerbauer, editor-in-chief of European Review, and Katalin Solymosi, YAE vice-chair. Katalin outlined the importance of organizing similar, geographically diverse multi stakeholder events to share knowledge, thoughts and best practices around the global challenges of open science and digital publishing. We are all experiencing a quickly changing, transitioning era and should recognise our responsibility as researchers in rethinking, redesigning and redefining our own publication practices. According to Katalin, these topics are also strongly related to the ongoing European research assessment reform, and we should ensure participation of representatives of EU15 countries and early- to mid-career researchers in all future discussions and decisions shaping the publication landscape.