Top of Mind with Sami Benchekroun
Each month, our CEO shares his thoughts on the trends shaping the scholarly communications industry. Browse through different month’s below.
Jump to an editorial month:
September 2022
Happy September my dear friends!
Excited to officially say goodbye to summer and hello to autumn! September has really flown by, and I seem to have spent much of it in the air as I travelled for meetings and many conferences. I’ve had many conversations with you all at ALPSP, NISO, and SSP! Look out for some thoughts from the Morressier team on the evolution of our industry.
It has been interesting to see how the conversation has changed. Where for several years the focus has been on open access and transformative agreements, the conferences this month have been all about research integrity and fixing our broken system. Memorable, one attendee at NISO crystallised the struggle by saying: “if authors need to manually type in metadata and PIDs into the workflow, then the system is broken.”
I was also really honoured to be selected as a new board member for ALPSP. I have big ideas for this industry, and how we can collaborate in a holistic way to truly transform the digital infrastructure of publishing. I welcome everyone’s ideas to bring to the board, so please get in touch!
Peer Review Week has been another very exciting set of events to follow along this year, especially with all the innovation the Morressier team is bringing to our workflows product. The world needs to be able to trust science, and that means investing in rigorous processes and technology that help us move faster and with more confidence. As you’ll see in the rest of our newsletter and throughout our website, we’ve been talking about research integrity all month. In fact, if you’re reading this on the day it comes out (September 29), I’m giving a webinar on the topic this very morning! Don’t worry, we’ll share the recording with everyone who misses it. I think my favorite series of the week was from our friends at Scholarly Kitchen. In three blogs, they asked many stakeholders with different perspectives whether research integrity was possible without peer review. A provocative question, but exactly the type of question we need to ask to evolve and transform this industry in a time of seismic change. And its also exactly the type of collaborative, multi-stakeholder conversation that we so value at Morressier.
We’re excited to officially transition into the final quarter of the year next month. There are many more exciting opportunities on the horizon. Will you be at the STM Conference, the Frankfurt Bookfair, or the Charleston Conference this month? We would love to connect, so please reach out to sami.benchekroun@morressier.com.
One more thing. I know AI can seem like nothing more than a trendy buzzword in technology spaces, but we need to talk about the connection between AI and early-stage research. With technology, we’re now able to mine early-stage research, in all its uncategorized and multiformat glory, for keywords. Natural language processing can make complex scientific concepts easy for the public to understand, and we can even use those summaries and keywords to identify the perfect journal for developing early-stage research. So much more to come, but I am too excited not to share what’s on the horizon!
August 2022
Hello dear learner community!
I was ready to share my thoughts this month on the topic ‘publish or perish’ when the news from the OSTP hit. They’ve announced a new policy for public access to federally funded research in the US, which is set to have far reaching impacts on this community. I immediately scraped my original letter to you, to share our thoughts on the newly-urgent need for Open Access first infrastructure.
This memo makes it clear to us that there is no more time to “wait and see.” We cannot put off developing the modern technologies for end-to-end OA solutions. Without the right infrastructure, our industry will not be able to meet the demands of this memo.
We need to think differently. From the workflow tools, to the platforms we use to share research, we need to change our mindsets to set our industry up to thrive with these new mandates. Solutions must easily integrate with standards organizations to help validate funding and institutional affiliations. It is our responsibility to make it easy for authors to navigate these changes and understand what their options are when they are sharing their work. From top to bottom, the infrastructure of scholarly communication needs to be reviewed through an OA-first lens, and rebuilt accordingly.
Beyond building the technology to enable this industry shift, we need to re-evaluate how we view the research lifecycle. I suggest we also need to approach non-traditional research outputs with a renewed focus. The White House’s focus on delivering equitable access is all the more important in the world of early-stage research. Here are the newest discoveries, the discoveries in progress, which may go unshared for months or even years in the traditional publishing process.
Morressier is ready to meet the demands of this industry. Our platform is a unique end-to-end solution that is flexible enough to configure for the evolving world of OA. We embrace non-traditional research outputs, integrate easily to disambiguate the researcher, and we have a growth mindset for our technology that means continuous improvements. Our vision and our philosophy to product development are ready for this moment. Are you?
PS. In case you were curious about some of the articles that originally stuck out to me, on our publish or perish theme, I’ve shared them below:
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Across the pond from the US, the European Commission reached an agreement to reform research assessment, and we’re eager to see what comes of this rallying cry for systemic change.
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Several industry thinkers shared their opinions on the toxic culture created by peer review, and whether anyone truly cares about integrity, and its another rallying cry for change that we’re excited to meet.
July 2022
Hello dear learner community! Happy summer to you all. As every year, I am spending the summer with my family in Austria and we are all experiencing enormous heatwaves. I very much hope that everyone found a cool place.
One of the most anticipated moments of the scholarly publishing year happens in the height of summer: the release of the Journal Citation Report. This year is particularly interesting, as we’re starting to see the impact of Covid-19 research on journal performance. From The Lancet’s increase to the seven medical journals with impact factors over 100, its clear how focused the community has been on this global pandemic. While this performance is exceptional, we must always focus on research integrity and sound citation practices. As this article writes, “scholarly publishing [is] based on trust” but manipulation continues. How can early-stage research influence this conversation? In this current environment we have ongoing discussions with our clients about a future where early-stage research gives critical insights and input into research outputs further upstream. Integrity is critical to our workflow tools, and evaluating early-stage research can provide insights on where a field is trending, and how thinking evolves over time.
It's exciting to see more societies and associations embracing digital transformation. Our conversations with many of you have been creative and bold, full of ideas that inspire us to help build the future you need for your organization. To create change you need many different perspectives at the table. I’ve been reminded of a slightly older article from the National Academy of Engineering, which dives deep into the benefit of blurring the lines between art, science, and technology. This out of the box thinking is always our mentality as we build solutions for you, and this summer has been full of unexpected and exciting new opportunities.
I’m seeing incredible momentum for partnerships between scholarly publishing and technology organizations. What an exciting time it is! We see so much potential in Morressier’s solutions, but also in Morressier’s people to come up with the tools to power the next wave of change in this industry.
Until next month, I wish you all sunshine and vacations, with enough rain to keep us free from droughts.
June 2022
Hello learners around the globe! Let me share my thoughts for this month on the world of scholarly communication.
It has definitely been a busy one. Over the course of many conversations with partners and friends at those many wonderful occasions of meetings and conferences, I have been re-reminded of something important: the incredible responsibility that we have as part of the world of scholarly communication.
The world feels volatile right now, from the wars, to the climate, to the economy. There is, and needs to be, stability in how research is conducted and communicated. Labs and teams around the world are studying different pieces to the puzzles of our global challenges. Bringing those ideas together, adding collaboration and discussion formats, and we can move the world forward, together.
One thing I’ve noticed, in the conversations between sessions at SSP, or in the sessions themselves, is a renewed sense of urgency. Do you feel it too? Many of you shared how your organizations are ready to try new things and partnerships. I’m seeing the same urgency in some interesting pieces I’ve read this month, about how our industry is embracing (or sometimes resisting) change to embrace that common responsibility and maybe move one or two steps ahead.
First up, is an article about the old saying ‘publish or perish.’ The world’s scientists are too entrenched in this model - even though it limits collaboration and progress. We join this article’s call for broader definitions for scientific success and broadening the view of scholarly output! Following that same theme, the Committee of Publishing Ethics recently released a report on paper mills, which calls for greater investment in research integrity tools and changes to institutional incentives that create the demand for these mills to thrive - in our many partner and client projects we have added sophisticated methodologies to take on this crucial fight.
But even as our current models overwhelm us, there’s change to be found in the world of remote collaboration. This example from early career oceanographers points out how a “team science approach,” openly accessible data, and technology can transform productivity. This article from Forbes takes remote collaboration further, exploring recent studies from MIT, Oxford, and more. Does proximity matter, or do remote collaborations increase the likelihood of research breakthroughs? Signs point to yes, but only if the industry transforms by building new skills and embracing new technologies.
Transformation drives me and my thinking process. And my firm belief is that this industry is too important to not embrace change. There are so many places where technology improves processes, builds communities, and embraces new opportunities for revenue growth - always with the huge responsibility in mind. As always, Morressier is ready and here to help with solutions that will transform scholarly organizations.
May 2022
Hello learners! I’m very excited to enter the summer months with new ideas and changes for our industry. Here’s what’s top of mind:
Evolving industry dynamics
Scholarly communications leans toward industry consolidation. Mergers among publishers, acquisitions everywhere. As we now see an increased activity around infrastructure, and potential for consolidations in emerging areas like our very own - early-stage research, we are very keen to discover further dynamics in this ever-changing world of scholarly publishing. We want to drive and organize the discussion around principles of effective sharing and early collaboration in order to empower every learner around the world - very excited to hear your thoughts: send me an email sami.benchekroun@morressier.com.
Digitizing Science Communication
Scientific communities should tap into innovative ways of communicating, collaborating, and sharing in-progress ideas. As online journals become more prominent, have we eliminated the need to follow prescribed processes of drafting papers? Can community-generated raw knowledge be shared as it evolves? Ideas shared online can also be updated, edited, and deliberated on because they live on an easily accessible digital database. Read what this Guardian article has to say about this.
The Risks and Rewards of Sharing Conference Presentations
We’ve noticed early-stage research taking center stage in scholarly communication debates. Researchers are raising concerns about “scooping” or the risk of sharing in-progress work for future career prospects. The answer to these risks is not to avoid sharing early-stage research: it is to change the way the industry things about it and on what kinds of support we give. Without sharing early-stage research we are slowing down progress on the global challenges that need every curious mind to collaborate on.
Sharing conference presentations only to researchers who have the means and ability to travel to in-person conferences is not good enough: it excludes many people early in their careers, or with care responsibilities at home, or researchers with limited financial resources outside of the Europe or the United States. Publishers, technology companies, and societies need to work together to ensure the highest standards for early-stage research, and we also need to change the recognition structure that fuels these fears about sharing in-progress work. In science we collaborate. Because, like we saw during COVID-19, the world needs every scientist working together and freely sharing their work.
April 2022
Hello dear learner community!
Another month and I am excited to walk you through significant trends shaking up the scholarly community and how they align with how we think at Morressier.
On Research Integrity
Disseminating pre-published findings allows us to see the entire scientific progress from early on in the research lifecycle - incredibly valuable to scientists, societies, publishers, corporations and even governments. This early-stage access not only paves the way for collaboration across the scientific community, but also makes it easier to detect fraudulent results from the very first formalized output.
We’re constantly improving research integrity at Morressier. Whether its integrity checks, or keeping watch over potential self-citations, we believe it is critically important for early-stage research to hold itself to high standards so that all outputs that follow have a strong foundation to grow from. This article from The Scholarly Kitchen delves into this topic further.
The State of Scientific Communications
How can we expand our current digital communication tools to build network structures? Can we create a world in which scientific output is more accessible to all? I was thrilled to take part in a discussion with the host of ScienceTalks' All Things SciComm podcast, Nikesh Gosalia, on the future of virtual networking. Listen to part one of the conversation here.
In the future, is everything streamed?
There are a million visions of how we’ll communicate and connect in a fast-paced and changing world. Holograms? Virtual reality? We’re excited to have some of these conversations with our friends at Ithaka S&R. Their research project on streaming media in the academic world will help guide our industry. Read their thoughts on innovation and streaming here.