Research culture evidence gathering meeting: scientific publishing

To inform its discussions, members of the Steering Group on the culture of scientific research held an evidence-gathering meeting with experts in scientific publishing on 30 September 2014. The group discussed a wide range of questions relating to the role of publishers, editors and others in the culture of research, such as:

• What role do you think journal publishers play in shaping research culture in the UK?


• How should journal publications contribute to the assessment of research and researcher quality, and what can publishers do to influence their use?


• What are the challenges currently faced by the peer review process and what does the future hold?


• What role should publishers have in promoting greater access to raw data?


• Are developments in technology / social media having an impact on how publishers support high quality research?

The guests at the meeting were:

• Euan Adie, Founder, Altmetric.com


• Theodora Bloom, Executive Editor, British Medical Journal


• Liz Dunn, Publisher, Royal Society of Chemistry


• Chris Graf, Treasurer, Committee on Publication Ethics and Associate Editorial Director in the medical journal division at Wiley-Blackwell


• Nicola Gulley, Editorial Director, Institute of Physics Publishing


• Michael Jubb, Director, Research Information Network


• Ruth King, Editorial Director - Health Sciences, BioMed Central


• Rebecca Lawrence, Managing Director, F1000Research


• Paul Peters, Chair, Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association and Chief Strategy Officer, Hindawi


• Publishing Corporation


• Alma Swan, Director of European Advocacy, SPARC Europe


• Kathleen Wets, Publisher, F1000 Prime

Evidence gathering meetings with experts from the social sciences took place on 19 June, and a meeting with funders of research took place on 31 July.