The Global Network of Scientists
By 
Shan-ul-Hai •
April 11, 2008
I think we can all agree that the advancement of science, especially medical science, is of paramount importance. So why is it that the National Institutes of Health, among other similar institutions, are always low on manpower and money?
I think that the NIH needs to establish a nationwide (or, preferably, global) network of peer-reviewed scientific journals. At the moment, all we have is private journals that take months or years to get “novel” research out into the public domain. It is such a long and complicated process that many researchers don’t even bother to report small findings, so other researchers end up repeating tests that have already been done. Meanwhile, some important research ends up fading into oblivion because the private journal has private business-related issues; for instance, one project that I was working on in 2005 had been complete since 1997, but hadn’t been published because the reviewers didn’t like my boss (and so they were being unnecessarily nitpicky). That paper still hasn’t been published, and the results could have been very important if they had been reported.
Because of these sorts of pressures, researchers are increasingly motivated to make a paper perfect before they try to submit it. This means that they often perform unnecessary tests (which have already been done, but they just repeat them to make their paper seem better) which waste time and cost money. If NIH created a public system for publishing quality research, all of these problems would be eliminated, allowing the general body of science to advance much farther and faster. So why hasn’t NIH done this yet?
Well, to give them some credit, there are people who are trying to make it happen. But at the moment, the private journals are still intermediates in the process… currently, they are trying to implement a policy where NIH simply takes recent (1 year-old) journal articles and re-publishes them in a free online database. Although this is a step in the right direction, it still doesn’t solve the problem of unnecessary delays in research. Our problem is that NIH is afraid of the private journals. They don’t want to force them out of business, so they haven’t created a public domain.
My rebuttal is this: if we can streamline a public peer-review system, the overall scientific improvement will be drastic. This will allow everything to happen so much faster that it will help us save millions of lives. Are we really willing to sacrifice those millions of people in exchange for a few hundred jobs?
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1. “So why is it that the National Institutes of Health, among other similar institutions, are always low on manpower and money?” Well, between 1998-2003, NIH funding actually doubled. The problem is that, since then, it has decreased 13%.
2. “I think that the NIH needs to establish a nationwide (or, preferably, global) network of peer-reviewed scientific journals. At the moment, all we have is private journals that take months or years to get “novel” research out into the public domain. It is such a long and complicated process that many researchers don’t even bother to report small findings, so other researchers end up repeating tests that have already been done. Meanwhile, some important research ends up fading into oblivion because the private journal has private business-related issues; for instance, one project that I was working on in 2005 had been complete since 1997, but hadn’t been published because the reviewers didn’t like my boss (and so they were being unnecessarily nitpicky). That paper still hasn’t been published, and the results could have been very important if they had been reported.” If anything, I think there are too many journals these days and it is therefore fairly easy to publish. I have heard many times, “if there is a will, there is a way” when it comes to publishing. Also, if the results of one’s research merit immediate release of the findings, there are ways to get an expedited review and publication–journals like Science, JAMA, NEJM, etc. regularly publish time-sensitive manuscripts quickly and efficiently. In your own case, if the research was as important as you suggest and the sole problem was the reviewers, someone could have submitted it to another journal and gotten it published. If a journal is worthy of publication in Science but is not accepted for whatever reason, it would likely be accepted by Cell, Nature, or PNAS, etc. Indeed, many journals now request a list of potential reviewers when an author submits a manuscript for review. Look at this link: http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:EJWRLkdUfZgJ:www.geocities.com/iipopescu/Jo_rankingb.htm+top+journals+by+impact+factor&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
The number of journals with very low impact factors (i.e. few people read or cite them) has increased substantially. And there was a recent study which showed many pubs are duplicates anyway http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7177/full/451397a.html.
3. “If NIH created a public system for publishing quality research, all of these problems would be eliminated, allowing the general body of science to advance much farther and faster. So why hasn’t NIH done this yet?” No one has the money to compensate reviewers, who are often the experts in the fields, to sit around and read papers all the time. And almost no one would want to only do that anyways. Not to mention, the # of manuscripts submitted for publication is an incredible number–many journals can only publish <10% of the manuscripts submitted.
Most reviewers do so on a voluntary basis and most are extremely busy with their other responsibilities which give them personal fulfillment and a paycheck, whether it be research, teaching, patient care, administration, etc. Most of them are in academia because they enjoy it and choose to serve the scientific community by evaluating articles to share. This is fairly time-consuming given the other time demands on the researchers.
When it comes to the small fraction of published work which actually makes a difference, I see little “unnecessary tests”.
“…happen so much faster that it will help us save millions of lives. Are we really willing to sacrifice those millions of people in exchange for a few hundred jobs?” Based on what I’ve mentioned above, I don’t see a feasible option aside from the current system. The system for publishing “quality research” and life-saving research is actually quite good, I think. “Business-related issues” are very rare and most journals publish high-quality, important articles.
I find this post to be rather unrealistic and biased.
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I am not sure that I can completely understand your comments. Would you be so kind as to expand on your reasoning a little more before I comment.