If You Want Open Science, Then You Need to Convince Funders

“What with the RWA kerfuffle, there has been a resurgence in advocacy for open-access science–not just removing paywalls, but also eliminating traditional peer review. To put it simply, if you are serious about this, then you have to work with funders on this; this will not be a bottom-up movement: ‘Peer-reviewed papers, to funding agencies, are the mark of good research (whether that should the case is an entirely separate post). They are currency: more papers increases the likelihood of funding. In biology, generating the data undergirding those peer-reviewed papers is time-consuming and expensive. You don’t want, and more importantly, can’t afford to have someone swooping in and publishing ‘your’ data first...’ There’s no magic funding fairy. Research, even on a small scale, is usually quite expensive. I’m open to open publishing (so to speak), and have legitimate bona fides regarding public release of unpublished data. But for many PIs, it really is ‘publish or perish’ due to funding incentives. If you want open science, then you need to convince the funders. Until then, no one will take you very seriously. Cuz people got bills to pay.”