Nature, an open book?

Open Access (OA) to scientific publications is generally considered to be the desirable standard. In particular publications resulting from publicly funded research should not be obstructed by a (pay)wall and should be accessible easily by researchers, cross-disciplinary, by researchers in the private sector, including SME’s, and by the general public. Sharing scientific information widely is clearly beneficial for science itself, for facilitating applications and for involving and informing the public.

The transition to OA publishing is rather straightforward in principle but the practical implementation requires certain obstacles to be overcome. Publishing is a professional activity concerned with standards of quality control and editorial policies that have led to a body of scientific journals that has an important and recognized role in scholarly communication. This, or such a body of qualified scientific journals should be preserved under the transition to OA. Ideally the important publishers should stay on board by adapting their business models.

The highest standard of excellence is implied when reference is made to articles published in ‘Nature or Science’.  Or in a few other similarly highly ranked journals. Nature and Science are not OA journals, but they have a very strong position and researchers are keen to get their results published in them. So, in a sense, ‘Nature and Science’ are an obstacle to reaching the desired OA standard.

Let us look in somewhat more detail at Nature, as an example. Let me stress from the outset: my purpose is not to question the high quality that is attributed to Nature, my purpose is to understand whether it is possible to make it part of the ‘OA world’.

Nature’s Editor in Chief repeated recently, during a panel discussion at the European Science Open Forum conference in Dublin, that Nature has adhered to the same editorial policy ever since its foundation in 1869. Namely: in order to qualify for acceptance by Nature an article should report on new results, present ‘a first’, not reported on before. I do not find this very helpful, because every research article published in the scientific literature should satisfy such criteria. So what makes Nature so unique? What has changed since 1869 is the intensity and diversity of scientific research: the volume of excellent research has increased by orders of magnitude. The role of research has also changed: from a rather esoteric activity of a rather small elite to a societal necessity for competitiveness and sustainability. The number of manuscripts submitted to Nature for publication has increased enormously during its existence and the fraction of manuscripts actually accepted for publication has plummeted dramatically. This fact alone has contributed considerably to Nature’s almost mythical status. It is not Nature’s fault. Nature employs a staff of full time, professional editors, who, helped by reviewers (scientists, ‘peers’ of the authors submitting articles) do the utmost to select the best manuscripts for publication. But how do you define ‘the best’? There is a danger here of getting caught in a tautological illusion. To find clues I invite you to have a look at a number of recent issues of Nature. A first observation is that only about half of the published pages is dedicated to original scientific results (a small fraction of that half to fully fledged articles, the rest to ‘letters’). The remaining half is filled with news, views, advertisements, announcements, recruitment pages. I now ask myself again: how are ‘the best’ scientific articles defined. ‘The best’ for attracting the right audience for ‘the rest’?

Let us return to the scientific articles, 50% of Nature’s business. It remains a problem that the overly prolific submission of manuscripts to Nature puts a very heavy burden on the editorial staff. It comes at a cost that makes a transition to an Open Access business model for Nature prohibitive. At least, that is what Nature says. But why would that be so? The relatively few articles that are published in Nature can easily be paid for once the ‘author pays’ (means: research funding organization pays) model would be generally accepted. It is perfectly possible to maintain the highest scientific quality standards whilst adopting Open Access publishing as the new standard. This is true in general, this is true for Nature. It requires a critical attitude of the scientists, of the research funders and of those ‘measuring’ the quality of research and its practitioners. Nature should follow the scientific community, not the other way around.

(This 'blog' appeared, translated in Dutch and slightly edited, in 'NRC Handelsblad' of July 31, 2012)

Jos Engelen

July 28, 2012