Open scientists in the shoes of frustrated academics part I: Open-minded scepticism – HSE – EuroScientist's community blog

"The appreciation of science as an uncertainty reduction mechanism driven by open-minded scepticism can help us define Open Science as any practice that facilitates and encourages open-mindedness and scepticism. It also allows us to better comprehend the true problem with the existing academic publishing model. The issue is not that publishers make ridiculous amounts of money for little or zero added value. It is the fact that the current journal-based system does not reward open-minded scepticism. First, to survive in academia, scientists need to publish as many articles as possible, preferably in high-impact prestigious journals. This requires, first and foremost, to keep journal editors and reviewers happy and content. Therefore, individual preferences for theories and models that helped establish successful academic careers become a key factor in deciding what to study and under which perspective. Second, since scientists desperately need to publish, they have a clear investment in the outcome of their experiments, which frequently leads to the deliberate manipulation of study designs and analysis methods to achieve the desired p<.05 [4]. Third, scepticism is also discouraged as journals are usually looking for success stories with significant and groundbreaking findings instead of replication studies and null results. And fourth, you cannot obviously be a productive open-minded scepticist without open access to all data, including articles, raw data, and software code.

Most researchers today, especially those at the beginning of their careers, want to be scientists but are forced to be academics. It is more crucial than ever to change the environment to reward open-minded scepticism and thus bridge the enormous gap between science and academia. Evolution teaches us that profound environmental changes can come from subtle but constant pressure. Grassroots movements of independent scientists like Euroscience, Eurodoc and Open Scholar, will continue to exert constant pressure towards the correct direction, keeping at the same time alive the hope that top-down processes, instigated by governments and institutions, will help establish the appropriate incentives to promote honest scientific enquiry, even against the interests of the academic publishing industry."