Explore the Scientific Publishing Ecosystem

The ecosystem is dependent on a number of sophisticated tools and services that enable it to function. In addition to improving workflow, these tools and services generate data that can be vital to understanding trends and issues within the ecosystem. These examples are representative and not meant to be exhaustive.  

Some key examples:

• Editing services (Editage,Scribbr)
• Authoring, reference manager, and collaboration software (Mendeley, F1000Workspace,openAire,ReadCube papers, Authorea, Overleaf)
• Research and data organizations (labguru,figshare)
• Licensing services for securing third-party rights to content used in research output (copyright.com,RightsLink, PLS)

Examples include researchers from corporate, academic, and government/NGO settings.  

Actions

• Research publishers.
• Submit and revise manuscript/patent/standard.
• Suggest peer reviewers.
• Collaborate to write up research results.
• Seek pre-submission advice and guidance.

Investments  

• Invest time and resources in writing, editing, and submitting research output (i.e., articles, book content, data tables, etc.). 
• Invest time and resources in my own professional development and certifications. 

Rewards  

• Enhanced reputation in scientific community. 
• Career advancement / tenure. 
• Improved peer network. 
• Advance science/knowledge. 

What Keeps Me up at Night  

• If I can’t publish in a high-profile journal or platform, either because of funding mandates related to open access or because of high rejection rates, my career opportunities will be severely limited. 
• I also worry about research competitors, given the enormous pressure to disclose my data sets to everyone. 
• If I inadvertently publish in predatory journals, my professional reputation is put at risk. 

Examples include Max Planck Society, University College London, Cambridge University, and the University of California.  

Actions

• Self-publish research.
• Host supplemental data.
• Support staff in providing peer review and editorial and editorial board services.
• Provide access to content and research in support of authorship.
• Provide institutional tools like Symplectic and Pure to manage content created by institutional authors.

Investments

• Pay salaries of researchers and embedded librarians and invest in professional development/certifications.
• Invest in research collaboration platforms and in tools to support institutional research content management.
• Invest in citation indexes, content databases, trademark services, and research intelligence platforms.
• Invest in benchmarking tools to measure productivity and research output.
• Invest staff time in creating frameworks for negotiating APC and transformative agreements and to track OA spend.
• Invest in text and data mining tools.

Rewards

• Solve global issues.
• Attract talent.
• Attract more students.
• Attract more research funding.
• Raise reputation.
• Advance science/knowledge.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• The constant pressure to achieve ambitious research rating benchmarks may frustrate my researchers, leading to burnout and poor science, damaging all our reputations.
• Those same pressures may also prevent us from hiring the talent we need to attract new funding and thus may negatively impact our overall research programs.
• Understanding drivers and barriers for researchers to adopt open science practices and design the appropriate (community-specific) incentives.
• The challenges of supporting non-native English-speaking researchers.
• The increasing expectations and costs of APCs are putting pressure on fixed library acquisition/subscription budgets.

Examples include NIH, Wellcome, Gates Foundation, Max Planck Society, Novartis, BASF, IBM, and Intel.

Actions

• Provide submission platform.
• Provide block grants for APCs or open access publication charges.
• Track compliance with funder mandates.
• Fund further research.
• Publicize funded research.
• Set funding policies and issue mandates.

Investments

• Invest in building or buying submission platforms.
• Raise, allocate, and track funding.

Rewards

• Provide immediate access to published articles, full data sets, and related infrastructure.
• Enable broad and immediate sharing of research results.
• Get recognition for use of funds and infrastructure for the advancement of science.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• Without evidence of high impact from funded research, future budget allocations will remain flat or decline.
• In addition, it is difficult to enforce certain mandates (e.g., those related to data); thus, we worry about how to achieve truly open science.
• Understand drivers and barriers for researchers to adopt open science practices and design the appropriate (community-specific) incentives.
• A controversial author or an inappropriate research agenda may damage our reputation. Are negative results of research being reported to prevent other researchers from wasting time/money?

Examples include Elsevier, American Chemical Society, IOP, BMJ, Frontiers, PLOS, elife, and IEEE.  

Actions

• Provide submission and product platforms.
• Provide authoring and collaboration tools.
• Structure APC / open access funding agreements.
• Provide pre-submission guidance.

Investments

• Invest in research and collaboration platforms.
• Invest staff time in supporting pre-submission activities.
• Invest in building reviewer networks.
• Invest staff time in creating frameworks for negotiating APC and transformative agreements.

Rewards

• Increase engagement with established authors, rising stars, and potential new authors.
• Foster new products.
• Attract new customers.
• Expand society membership.
• Raise reputation.
• Develop scientific networks.
• Drive revenue using collaboration platforms and other authoring tools.
• Advance science/knowledge.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• As a publisher, we worry that a power imbalance in the ecosystem will render our role irrelevant. As a society publisher, membership may decline enough to threaten the organization’s sustainability.
• Understand drivers and barriers for researchers to adopt open science practices and design the appropriate (community-specific) incentives.
• Challenges of supporting non-native English-speaking researchers.
• Attracting top authors may become increasingly difficult if pre-print, university, and alternative publishing platforms (Subscribe to Open and F1000) continue to evolve and gain market share.

The ecosystem is dependent on a number of sophisticated tools and services that enable it to function. In addition to improving workflow, these tools and services generate data that can be vital to understanding trends and issues within the ecosystem. These examples are representative and not meant to be exhaustive.

Some key examples:

• Workflow software (ScholarOne,BenchPress, Editorial Manager)
• Preprint servers (arXiv,bioRxiv,Authorea)
• Peer review tools (PLoSReviewer Center,StatReviewer, Publons)
• Open Access payment workflows and management tools (RightsLink, proprietary systems, Aptara)
• Identifying experts in a specific field (Expert Lookup)
• Repositories and tools for discovery, annotation, analytics, etc. (DSpace)

Examples include researchers from corporate, academic, and government/NGO settings.  

Actions

• Research publishers and editorial requirements.
• Submit and revise manuscripts based on peer review / editorial comments using publisher- or funder-required submissions systems.
• Suggest peer reviewers.
• Seek APC or open access publication funding once manuscript accepted.
• Provide peer review.
• Participate in or create new academic societies and peer networks that — in collaboration with libraries and repositories — provide research evaluation.

Investments

• Invest time in submitting, revising, and reviewing manuscripts by all relevant research team members.
• Fund APCs out of pocket and/or manage the process of seeking non-centralized funding approval after manuscript is accepted.

Rewards

• Enhanced reputation in the scientific community.
• Career advancement / tenure.
• Improved peer network.
• Advance knowledge in field.
• Compensation for peer review (when available).

What Keeps Me up at Night

• The current peer-review framework is insufficiently transparent or collaborative; as a result, I will receive poor reviews and will lack the information or opportunity necessary to address any concerns.
• High rejection rates of submitted manuscripts mean I won’t get published in one of the top journals in my field and thus I won’t get tenure or advance in my career. Peer review can be time-consuming, leading to a delay in publishing my research results. I may not be able to comply with the amount of required data disclosure and may jeopardize my research funding.
• I am constantly bombarded with requests to review, and I don’t have time.
• Absence of formal recognition for my work as reviewer.

Examples include Max Planck Society, University College London, Cambridge University, and the University of California.  

Actions

• Self-publish research results.
• Host and maintain research-related data in institutional repositories.
• Enable staff to access peer review and editorial services through research platforms.
• Approve and fund APCs or open access publication charges once manuscript is accepted.
• Host and/or maintain preprint servers.

Investments

• Pay staff who act as editorial board members and reviewers.
• Pay staff to manage APC payment workflows.
• Pay APCs or open access publication charges after manuscript is accepted.
• Invest in repository technologies and infrastructure.
• Pay library staff to handle new repository features (e.g., discovery, annotation, analytics, etc.).

Rewards

• Carry out institutional mission for advancing open communication in science.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• Funders restricting APC funding to pure OA journals or repositories only, reducing rates of published works in high-impact and commercial journals.
• Professional and competitive pressures on researchers may lead to incomplete and/or ill-considered peer reviews.
• In addition, a lack of transparent or collaborative peer review may lead to low-quality reviews and thus lengthened publication cycles for the research we care about.

Examples include NIH, Wellcome, Gates Foundation, Max Planck Society, Novartis, BASF, IBM, and Intel.  

Actions

• Provide submission platform.
• Approve and fund APCs or open access publication charges.
• Track compliance with funding mandates.
• Host and/or maintain preprint servers.

Investments

• Invest time in tracking and managing compliance with funding mandates.
• Continue to track and approve grant applications and allocate funding.
• Invest in the development ofaltmetricsfor reviewer reputation.

Rewards

• Immediate access to published articles, full data sets, and related infrastructure.
• Broad and immediate sharing of research results.
• Recognition for use of funds and infrastructure for producing quality research and thus advancing knowledge / fulfilling the organization’s mission.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• Peer-review practices of commercial and society publishers are not adapting quickly enough to ensure rapid publication of funded research; consequently, we may need to reconsider policy and investments in competing peer review and publishing platforms.
• If publishers and institutions don’t invest heavily enough in creating and automating the open access publishing infrastructure, the research we have funded will come in over budget and be slow to be published.

• Get recognition for use of funds and infrastructure for the advancement of science.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• Without evidence of high impact from funded research, future budget allocations will remain flat or decline.
• In addition, it is difficult to enforce certain mandates (e.g., those related to data); thus, we worry about how to achieve truly open science.
• Understand drivers and barriers for researchers to adopt open science practices and design the appropriate (community-specific) incentives.
• A controversial author or an inappropriate research agenda may damage our reputation. Are negative results of research being reported to prevent other researchers from wasting time/money?

Examples include Elsevier, American Chemical Society, IOP, BMJ, Frontiers, PLOS, elife, and IEEE.  

Actions

• Manage peer review process.
• Assess quality and reliability of science.
• Establish fit with scope of the journal and publishing program.
• Accept manuscripts.
• Host and/or maintain preprint servers.

Investments

• Invest in submission/production platforms.
• Invest APC e-commerce platform and workflows.
• Pay reviewer / editorial board honoraria (where available).
• Invest in building and maintaining peer review network.
• Invest in the development of altmetrics for reviewer reputation.

Rewards

• Expand scientific networks and brand recognition.
• Foster new works, identifying research that fits editorial goals of program or individual publications.
• Uncover new talent, converting peer reviews into authors, editors, readers, etc.
• Expand society membership.
• Achieve high-quality research evaluation.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• Funders restricting APC funding to pure OA journals or repositories only, challenging where authors can publish, business models, and P&Ls.
• When funders focus on shorter funding cycles or when funding dries up altogether, we may be investing heavily in evaluating low-quality science that doesn’t match our editorial standards, leading to very high and costly rejection rates.

The ecosystem is dependent on a number of sophisticated tools and services that enable it to function. In addition to improving workflow, these tools and services generate data that can be vital to understanding trends and issues within the ecosystem. These examples are representative and not meant to be exhaustive. 

Some key examples:

• Digital content development and hosting services (HighWire,Ingenta,Hinari, Research4Life, Esploro, Zotero)
• Open access publishing platforms (F1000Research,eLife)
• DOI registration (Crossref,DataCite)
• Plagiarism technology (Similarity Check,

Turnitin)

• Aggregators (ProQuest, Ensco,Scielo, CHORUS)
• Permissions software (RightsLink)
• Open access / institutional repositories (Figshare, Dryad, DIGITAL.CSIC, e-IEO)
• Discovery tools (Google Scholar / Google, ProQuest Summon, OCLCWorldCat)
• Author marketing tools (Kudos)
• Article-level metrics (altmetrics)
• Open access directories (DOAJ, Sherpa/Romeo)
• Integrated library system technology (GOBI, Innovative, OCLC)
• Sharing “guidelines” (Creative Commons, CCC)

Examples include researchers from corporate, academic, and government/NGO settings.  

Actions

• Revise content.
• Review proofs.
• Publish content.
• Publish supplementary data.
• Promote research output.

Investments

• Subscribe to marketing tools for authors (e.g., Kudos).
• Time invested in manuscript revisions and adding publication information to author profiles, ORCID records, etc.

Rewards

• Advance career / tenure.
• Elevate personal standing in department or institution.
• Enhance reputation outside the institution.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• Once published, I worry whether others will read my articles and validate my research. I want my research to have an impact on the scientific community.
• Professional advancement remains dependent on my publishing in the most prestigious journals, while at the same time, many open access journals do not show a high “impact factor.”

Examples include Max Planck Society, University College London, Cambridge University, and the University of California.  

Actions

• Provide platforms to self-publish research results.
• Host research-related data.
• Catalog, tag, and archive research.
• Assign DOIs for data.
• Incentivize/reward publication of negative results.

Investments

• Invest in websites/platforms/repositories and appropriate processes, policies, and positions to facilitate publication of scholarly articles / research output.
• Invest in integrated library system technology.
• Subscribe to marketing tools for authors (e.g., Kudos).
• Invest in staff time and expertise in managing APCs and publication embargoes.

Rewards

• Achieve institutional mission.
• Attract talent.
• Attract more students.
• Attract more research funding.
• Raise reputation.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• Flat or diminishing library acquisition budgets will make it impossible for the institution to fund subscriptions, APCs, and new data products.
• How to better support/fund the publication and sharing of supplemental and underlying research data.
• The demands of negotiating and implementing transformative agreements in a timely fashion given the ever-changing OA landscape.
• Entities like Sci-Hub may acquire researcher credentials, creating liability potential for individual researchers and the institution.

Examples include NIH, Wellcome, Gates Foundation, Max Planck Society, Novartis, BASF, IBM, and Intel.  

Actions

• Track research output.
• Track compliance with publication and research deposit mandates.
• Provide platforms to self-publish research results.
• Continue/extend requirements for sharing (data, code, MSS, etc.).
• Incentivize/reward publication of negative results.

Investments

• Invest in platforms that enable self-publishing of research results.
• Invest in websites/platforms/repositories and appropriate processes, policies, and positions to facilitate publication of scholarly articles / research output.

Rewards

• Achieve mission.
• Raise reputation.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• The pace of change in moving from subscription to open access publishing means funded research may not reach the intended audiences, may not have the desired impact on society, or both.
• How to better support/fund the publication and sharing of supplemental and underlying research data.
• If publishing and peer review platforms break down, then our organization’s mission to publish and disseminate research results as quickly as possible will not be met.

Examples include Elsevier, American Chemical Society, IOP, BMJ, Frontiers, PLOS, elife, and IEEE.  

Actions

• Edit content.
• Design and package.
• Assign metadata / enable discoverability.
• Publish.
• Curate volumes/issues.
• Distribute/host content directly.
• Set up third-party/channel distribution to ensure access by developing countries.
• Deposit in repositories; archive content/manage data.
• Manage permissions for reuse.
• Liaise with society partners.
• Market/preview content.

• Incentivize/reward publication of negative results.
• Mine data and data sets.

Investments

• Invest in editorial and/or production platforms.
• Invest in websites/platforms/repositories and appropriate processes, policies, and positions to facilitate publication of scholarly articles / research output.
• Pay distribution fees to aggregators.
• Pay annual dues to standards organizations.
• Pay typesetters and metadata taggers.
• Invest in editorial, production, marketing, sales, and data management staff.
• Pay other third-party fees.

Rewards

• Achieve revenue and profit targets.
• Gain new insights and foster new products.
• Attract new customers.
• Raise reputation.
• Enhanced growth in society membership.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• When funder mandates require publishing in pure OA journals or repositories only, current and future authors will publish elsewhere, threatening the organization’s viability.
• How to better support/fund the publication and sharing of supplemental and underlying research data.
• Sharing sites (SciHub, ResearchGate) will reduce my P&L to unsustainable levels.
• The demands of negotiating and implementing transformative agreements in a timely fashion given the ever-changing OA landscape.
• If our publishing and institutional sales programs are unable to meet the Horizon 2020/2021 demands for publishing content in pure open access journals or repositories only.

The ecosystem is dependent on a number of sophisticated tools and services that enable it to function. In addition to improving workflow, these tools and services generate data that can be vital to understanding trends and issues within the ecosystem. These examples are representative and not meant to be exhaustive.  

Some key examples:

• Altmetrics (Altmetric, Plum Analytics)
• Reputation management (Kudos,ImpactStory)
• Text & data mining tools, document delivery (RightFind, Reprints Desk)
• A&I services (Scopus,ScienceOpen)
• Subscription agents (EBSCO,Harrassowitz)
• Social media, collaborative networks (ResearchGate, Academia.edu)
• Archiving software (LOCKSS, CLOCKSS)
• Library system technology (ILS), data collection of posters/conferences (Morressier)
• Licensing services (copyright.com,RightsLink, PLS, Creative Commons)
• CRIS or Research Information Systems (Symplectic, Pure)

Examples include researchers from corporate, academic, and government/NGO settings.

Actions

• Post article to personal/professional website (copyright permitting).
• Share on collaborative networks.
• Market content, write blog posts, etc.
• Track impact (bibliometric/social).
• Trackaltmetrics.

Investments

• Time/effort.

Rewards

• Advance science/solve global issues.
• Enhanced reputation in the scientific community.
• Career advancement / tenure.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• Any post-publication lack of compliance with funding mandates could put future research funding at risk.

Examples include Max Planck Society, University College London, Cambridge University, and the University of California.  

Actions

• Make articles accessible via discovery tools or library systems.
• Archive articles and data.
• Mine data and data sets.
• Track usage statistics.
• Ensure publication details are registered in CRIS.

Investments

• Subscription costs.
• Library system technology costs.
• Archiving costs.
• Staffing costs.
• Licensing costs.

Rewards

• Advance science / solve global issues (e.g., climate change).
• Attract talent.
• Attract more students.
• Attract more research funding.
• Raise reputation.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• Any post-publication lack of compliance with funding mandates could put future research funding at risk.

Examples include NIH, Wellcome, Gates Foundation, Max Planck Society, Novartis, BASF, IBM, and Intel.  

Actions

• Measure impact of articles: scientific, social, economic, etc.
• Look for additional funding opportunities.
• Check for compliance with funding mandates.

Investments

• Time/effort.
• Staffing costs.

Rewards

• Advance science / solve global issues (e.g., climate change).
• Attract more funding.
• Raise reputation.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• If data used to measure success is incomplete or substandard, then we may not fund the most promising people, labs, or science.

Examples include Elsevier, American Chemical Society, IOP, BMJ, Frontiers, PLOS, elife, and IEEE. 

Actions

• Archive articles and data.
• Measure impact (journal impact factor).
• Track usage statistics.
• Trackaltmetrics.

Rewards

• Drive revenue.
• Advance science / solve global issues (e.g., climate change).
• Attract new customers.
• Expand society membership.
• Raise reputation.
• Identify future authors.

Investments

• Ongoing marketing costs.
• New product development costs.
• Operational costs for tracking.
• Archiving costs.
• Staffing costs.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• Sharing sites (Sci-Hub, ResearchGate) threaten my revenue and the perception of value, thus threatening the organization’s ongoing viability.
• CC-BY and other licensing mandates from funders, institutions, and policy makers directly threaten licensing revenue; as a result, the diverse revenue streams necessary to fund publishing activities would diminish or disappear. APCs alone do not cover the costs of running a quality publishing program.

The ecosystem is dependent on a number of sophisticated tools and services that enable it to function. In addition to improving workflow, these tools and services generate data that can be vital to understanding trends and issues within the ecosystem. These examples are representative and not meant to be exhaustive.  

Some key examples:

• Reference manager and collaboration software (Mendeley, F1000Workspace, openAire, Zotero)
• Electronic lab notebooks (Hivebench, OneNote)
• Grant writing software (GrantHub, Oracle PeopleSoft)
• Collaboration networks (ResearchGate, Academia.edu)
• Digital identifiers (ORCID, Ringgold, ISNI)
• Discovery tools (Google Scholar/Google, ProQuest Summon, OCLCWorldCat, Dimensions, Symplectic Discovery, VIVO)
• A&I services (Scopus, ScienceOpen)
• Data collection of posters/conferences (Morressier)
• Identifying experts in a specific field (Expert Lookup)
• Non-publishing learned societies providing research collaboration, conferences, education, etc.

Examples include researchers from corporate, academic, and government/NGO settings.  

Actions

• Secure grants/funding.
• Conduct research and experiments.
• Collaborate with team / scientific peers.
• Manage and analyze data.
• Exchange ideas and early research with other researchers.
• Analyze data sourced from post-publication tools (e.g., altmetrics) to identify rich areas for further research.

Investments

• Self-fund travel to conferences.
• Invest time in peer-to-peer collaboration.
• Invest in individual research and course materials.
• Invest in memberships to scientific and professional societies/organizations.

Rewards

• Enhanced reputation in scientific community.
• Career advancement / tenure.
• Improved peer network.
• Potential new funding.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• Lack of opportunities for interdisciplinary funding.
• If I (or my institution) do not comply properly with OA mandates, then funding for future research and related research output will be denied.
• Language as a barrier; bias towards research published in English.
• Lack of funding for researchers from developing countries.
• How best to collaborate with Chinese peers given varying open access funding models.
• No formal incentives for investment in reproducibility and replicability.
• Rankings based on flawed or problematic measures of research quality.
• Administrative and teaching load encroaching on research time.
• Success is too often measured by publishing outcomes or securing next rounds of funding; accordingly, I may have to concentrate my research on short-term research projects that may not allow for enough research to produce the breakthrough results required by many of the most pressing challenges facing our world. Moreover, pressure to publish in a high-impact journal can lead to dangerous selectivity of results.

Examples include Max Planck Society, University College London, Cambridge University, and the University of California.  

Actions

• Manage institutional research budgets.
• Secure grants for research.
• Provide library support for curating projects and related data.
• Host research results and related data.
• Report and track funds.
• Balance support for established researchers with support for junior researchers who may offer novel approaches.
• Analyze data sourced from post-publication tools (e.g., altmetrics) to identify rich areas for further research.

Investments

• Invest in research collaboration platforms.
• Invest in citation indexes, content databases, trademark services, and research intelligence platforms.
• Invest in benchmarking tools to measure productivity and research output.
• Invest in text and data mining tools.
• Fund labs, research management offices and research salaries.

Rewards

• Solve global issues.
• Create jobs.
• Attract talent.
• Attract more students.
• Attract more research funding.
• Keep government and administration happy.
• Raise reputation.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• Lack of opportunities for interdisciplinary funding.
• If we do not comply properly with OA mandates, my institution and my research teams may not get future funding.
• Language as a barrier; bias towards research published in English.
• Recognizing competition from Chinese peers because of different funding models and government policy.
• Rankings based on flawed or problematic measures of research quality.
• Making sure our researchers are complying with all of the guidelines in grant awards.
• The pressure of university ranking methodologies.
• Political and fiscal pressures on government funding mean we may not hire as many young researchers as we would like.
• Non-government funding may be too closely tied to commercial interests rather than to rigorous scientific outcomes, impacting both our institution’s standing in the research community and our ability to attract future students and future talent.

Examples include NIH, Wellcome, Gates Foundation, Max Planck Society, Novartis, BASF, IBM, and Intel.  

Actions

• Solicit/review proposals.
• Fund research/award grants, including annual APC block grants.
• Set framework policy for research, publication, data sharing, and reporting results.
• Pre-screen and vet researchers and/or assemble research teams for specific research.
• Raise funds.
• Balance support for established researchers with support for junior researchers who may offer novel approaches.
• Analyze data sourced from post-publication tools (e.g., altmetrics) to identify rich areas for further research.

Investments

• Pay and develop staff.
• Host training sessions.
• Fund research grants.
• Allocate annual APC block grants to the institution.
• Set policy agenda for funded research.

Rewards

• Fulfill mission and related goals.
• Keep government and administration happy.
• Secure additional funding to provide more grants.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• How to create opportunities for interdisciplinary funding.
• Ensuring that our funding policies support our organization’s goals or mission by investing properly in both individual projects and long-term research conducted by labs.
• Language as a barrier; bias towards research published in English.
• Recognizing competition from Chinese peers because of different funding models and government policy.
• Rankings based on flawed or problematic measures of research quality.
• Securing outside funding for rare or non-priority diseases that don’t attract large donations or gifts.
• Lawmakers or government agency administrators may cut support if a controversy erupts in research we have funded. Government can also apply pressure against certain research areas (e.g., climate change) thus compromising our research efforts; as a result, we will suffer opportunity costs.

Examples include Elsevier, American Chemical Society, IOP, BMJ, Frontiers, PLOS, elife, and IEEE.  

Actions

• Provide curated content research resources.
• Provide research and collaboration platforms.
• Provide support for scientific networks.
• Provide early contact and guidance for researchers during the pre-submission process.
• Balance support for established researchers with support for junior researchers who may offer novel approaches.
• Analyze data sourced from post-publication tools (e.g., altmetrics) to identify research trends.

Investments

• Investment in staff, technology, and infrastructure.
• Investment in research collaboration, engagement, and advisory groups; identify “hot topics.”
• Invest in the development of societies and services for members.
• Invest in text and data mining tools.

Rewards

• Drive revenue.
• Foster new products.
• Attract new customers.
• Raise reputation.
• Build networks.
• Support new discoveries.
• Engage stakeholders.
• Support society members.

What Keeps Me up at Night

• Lack of opportunities for interdisciplinary funding.
• When funders step beyond funding research to include hosting of publishing and distribution platforms, I worry that our role in the scholarly publishing and scientific ecosystem will be diminished.
• Recognizing competition from Chinese peers because of different funding models and government policy.
• Anti-publisher sentiments from funders, institutions, and others.
• Non-compliance with regional, national, or international OA mandates may lead to denial of funding for future research and related research output.