A year ago now, we launched a trial to test the use of cloud-container platforms for peer review and publication of code at several Nature journals. The trial phase of this initiative is now officially over, and we would like to share the experience and outcomes, and provide an overview of what comes next. Read more
This guest blog comes from Elizabeth Moylan, Senior Editor, Peer Review Strategy and Innovation BMC at Springer Nature, and Elisa de Ranieri, Head of Editorial Process and Data Analytics, Nature journals at Springer Nature. Read more
As part of Springer Nature plans to celebrate the theme of Peer Review Week 2017 “Transparency in peer review”, we organised an event for researchers to discuss what transparency in peer review means to them and ways this might be achieved. The event on September 15th was kindly hosted by University College London with over 70 researchers attending including students, post-docs and professors. Read more
PhD students are the backbone of the research industry, often responsible for compiling precious datasets for their lab and learning the cutting-edge techniques required for analysis. But completing a PhD is hard, and getting harder as scientific standards creep steadily upwards. It takes over a year longer for current students to publish their first scientific paper than those 30 years ago because of the increasing data requirements of top journals. Across Europe and Australia, this is one reason why students are taking an average of four to six years (or longer) to complete their PhDs, despite candidature contracts usually being a maximum of four years, and government scholarships lasting at most three and a half years. Read more
Scientific irreproducibility — the inability to repeat others’ experiments and reach the same conclusion — is a growing concern. Read more
Peer review is at the heart of high-quality academic publishing, and every editor at Nature Research is grateful for the service of the reviewers who carefully scrutinise every research paper we publish. While SpotOn – taking place this Saturday 5 November in London – is exploring what peer review might look like in 2030, we recognise that many peer reviewers need advice and training now, too. Read more
The week from 19 to 25 September 2016 marks the second round of Peer Review Week with the theme of “Recognition for Review”. The topic is obviously close to our hearts at Nature Research: after all, peer review is much of what we do. Read more
Peer review is at the heart of the research process. Academics generously dedicate hours of their week, to examine each other’s work, offer much-valued constructive criticism and improve the published science (or maths, or social science, etc.). Reviews take time, but peer review is mostly anonymous, meaning it is difficult for reviewers’ colleagues, publishers, institutions or funders to recognise it properly. Read more
This piece was republished from Sophie Lewis’ blog. Read more
Every day in this job, I learn something new. As a publishing assistant, I guide manuscripts through the peer review process at Scientific Reports. As such I handle manuscripts at multiple stages of the process. I like to think of it as following a manuscript’s journey from the lab up out into the world. Each day brings new challenges. Organisational skills are a must. Read more
