New grant funds open-access publishing in political science - The Washington Post

"One of our goals here at the Monkey Cage is to make political science research more accessible to policymakers, journalists, and the broader public. Blog posts are comparatively easy to write, publish, access, and read. They are a much better vehicle for reaching large audiences than peer-reviewed academic articles, which are hard to write, publish, access, and read. Yet academics must write peer-reviewed articles in order to get a job, tenure, and prestige. This means that their research efforts are typically focused on doing things that take years to write and publish, are hidden behind paywalls, and are mostly read by other academics. As The Monkey Cage and its hundreds of guest contributors have demonstrated, such research nevertheless has implications that interest policymakers and the broader audience. But what academics study in the first place is shaped by the fact that peer-reviewed research is usually not disseminated quickly and is not accessible to a broad audience.  A major new Carnegie Corporation grant, which also supports the Monkey Cage, intends to address this issue. The grant supports Research and Politics(R&P), a peer-reviewed journal published by SAGE Publishing. I am one of the editors-in-chief of the journal with Catherine de Vries, Bernard Steunenberg , Scott McClurg, and Kristian Gleditsch. Several of the Monkey Cage’s co-conspirators are associate editors ..."