The Building Blocks of ScienceDerek Groen
2020 SCIENCEThanks go out to James Suter, Gary Davies, Moqi Groen-Xu, Miguel Bernabeu and Ulf Schiller for highly useful discussions.
Why do we want credit?● Why do we want credit, and what is it important for?
○ Funding proposals ■ Can you get the proposed work done,■ or can you “just” write good proposals?
○ Job applications ■ Do you have the skills to do the job?
○ Recognition
Examples of giving credit
● Mentioning contributors.● Rewarding top contributors.
○ e.g. Nobel Prize, competitive funding● Scoring and aggregating contributions.
○ e.g., publication count, citations, REF● Indirect
○ activity leads to something else that is given credit.
The Basics
Scientific Resources● Data● Software● Devices● Samples
Methods● Algorithms● Protocols● Models● Heuristics● Statistical
...and of course the research idea (more on that later).
Organisation● Create/manage research groups.● Handle/divert external
political and administrative duties.● Attract funding.
Essential for larger scientific undertakings.
Scrutiny● Peer review,
○ incl. post-publication.● Validation, reproduction.● Correction.● Impartiality is key.
Essential for the long term integrity of science.
Vision● Research ideas.● Identify gaps.● Long-term research
directions.● Policy guidance.● Impartiality is key.
Essential for the long term integrity of science.
Academic exposure● Well-cited publications.● Invited Presentations.● Academic awards
Public exposure
● Press releases / ● News articles.● Appearances in the media.● “Expert” roles.
Uptake● Uptake by society and industry.● Spin-offs.● New jobs.● Economic growth.
These are the building blocks we need
Questions
● For which building blocks do we not give credit?
● And for which ones only indirect credit?
● How many of these skills would we expect/want an individual academic to have?
My current impression of credit in my field
Extra slides
Credit & Scientific Resources● Software and data papers are gaining acceptance.
○ This is an ongoing effort.● Repositories (e.g., Github) help quantify software contributions.
● What about other types of scientific resources?○ e.g., samples or bespoke devices.
● We need to ensure credit is due for creators of all types of scientific resources. (“Resource paper”..?)
Credit & Methods● Many venues for methods papers, and methods papers
are relatively straightforward to write, once the method exists.
● Do the existing venues capture the diversity of methods out there?
● Unsure here, perhaps methods are relatively well-credited already?
Credit & Organization● Credit for leading projects & students.● Credit for obtaining funding.
● No differentiation between well and poorly led endeavours, as final reports are largely kept private.
● We need to curate and aggregate reviews of ongoing research projects.
Credit & Scrutiny● “Reviewed for Nature” looks nice on a CV.● Named reviewing emerges (PeerJ).● Post-publication review emerges.● Little differentiation between reviewing 1 and 100
papers for Nature.● Little differentiation between good and bad reviews.● We need to collect and aggregate reviewing activities,
and identify the best reviewers in our fields.● Perhaps even a career path for the reviewer?
Credit & Vision● Research ideas are indirectly credited through papers & funding.● Vision may be indirectly credited by positions in scientific
committees.● Vision and ideas fundamental to research, but no direct credit
system is known to me.● Papers/funding can result from ideas from non-authors/Co-Is.● If we want to encourage vision and creativity, then we need to
directly credit it.● Patents may be too heavyweight for this purpose. ● Perhaps explicitly credit vision contributions to papers and
contributions to long term research and policy in science?
Credit & Exposure/Uptake● Direct credit for academic exposure.● Altmetrics etc. contributes to quantifying public
exposure.● Uptake common indirectly credited (e.g., through
external funding, industrial focus of funding calls).
● Science could benefit from more systematic crediting of public exposure and uptake ○ e.g., similar to how academic exposure is handled today.
What about teaching?
We could probably make a similar, but separate graph for teaching...