Programme

[Speaker: Lourdes Verdes Montenegro (IAA - CSIC) - Coordinator of the Spanish participation on SKA]. In a Special issue of Nature in 2010 concerning Science Metrics, it was claimed that “Research reverts to a kind of academic prostitution in which work is done to please editors and referees rather than to further knowledge.” I had this very same feeling when acting as chair of one of the ERC (European Research Council) panels, in charge of selecting the best candidates for Starting Grants. I was invited to present my views about the topic in an ERC scientific seminar in 2013, and that was the first version of this talk, followed by many others with their updates. Given the current epoch of economical crisis, where in a quest for funds researchers are forced into competitive game of pandering to panelists, it seems a good time for deep reflection about the entire scientific system. Hence the aim of this talk is to provoke some additional critical thinking, so that funding bodies do not fall into the trap of their own system. By perpetuating this “prostitution” they take the risk of funding not the best science but the best sold one. I will cover topics as the low reliability of the many commonly accepted metrics used for research, the vicious circle of publishing in high impact journals to make our CVs stronger hence making these journals get higher impact (and benefits), while increasing discrimination towards science produced in developing countries. But also about the emergence of alternative metrics that try to solve the fact that citations gather less than 1 % of the use of an article, as well as on new methods of publication (not only of the rhetoric of results but of data and methods) to support good ideas versus good marketing. Giving more importance to methodology (is it reproducible?) against rewarding results, should be a guaranty of a better science, that is… Science.