September’s Editorial in Nature Chemical Biology (5, 601; 2009) addesses the question of how to foster open scientific dialogue in the digital age while respecting the integrity of the scientific process. The publication of peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals is the primary means by which discoveries are disseminated through the scientific community, with the most exciting being subsequently communicated to the public through the scientific media. The Editorial continues:

“New media such as blogs and Twitter can greatly facilitate scientific communication, and may offer a route for engaging scientists more directly with the public. Yet the ‘scientist as journalist’ model that is supported by these technologies presents challenges as a general mechanism for distributing scientific information. Transmission of unpublished data on the Internet circumvents the peer-review process that serves as our primary quality control mechanism to ensure that scientific studies are technically sound before they are communicated to the public. Presenting unpublished results from meeting presentations and posters as established facts may create misunderstandings between scientists and could lead to major misconceptions of ongoing research discoveries by the general public, who may have a limited understanding of the scientific method and peer review.

The first step toward a more open system of scientific communication is an enhanced public understanding of the scientific method and the peer-review process. Scientists understand this, but they must play a greater role in these educational efforts. In the meantime, we maintain that embargoed press coverage of newly published scientific studies serves an important purpose to ensure that science reporting occurs only after peer review. Press embargoes also provide adequate lead time for journalists to prepare informed news stories to coincide with publication of a new research study (for example, see ”https://www.nature.com/authors/editorial_policies/embargo.html">Nature Publishing Group’s embargo policy). Scientists who wish to engage with the online community should draw on the positive aspects of this system as they aim for greater openness.

Scientists should experiment with new communication styles and technologies, which offer potential benefits for collaboration, data sharing and the advancement of scientific thinking. As these technologies gain wider acceptance, scientists must agree on guidelines for their appropriate use in the context of scientific discourse, and these guidelines should be consistent with our common goal of ensuring the integrity of the scientific information that we share among scientists and communicate to nonscientists."

In an article entitled Science reporting’s dark secret , David Whitehouse (a former BBC science correspondent) writes in the Independent newspaper about his growing feeling that the embargo system is a thing of the past. According to Mr Whitehouse, the embargo system encourages bland, indistinguishable science coverage across newspapers; forces Sunday newspapers to publish “daft” science stories; acts as a marketing tool for the journals; and is disliked by scientists. Read his stimulating article (at the link above) for more details of this indictment.

The Nature journals use the embargo system, which is explained on our author and referees’ website here. We believe that the embargo serves scientists, authors, journalists and the public. Our policy is to release information about our content in a way that provides fair and equal access to the media, allowing it to provide informed comment based on the complete and final version of the paper that is to be published. Authors and their institutions’ press offices are able then to interact with the media ahead of publication, and benefit from the subsequent coverage. We have our own press office to assist authors in their dealings with the media, and to assist the media to find out about our papers (we provide contact details of authors, and where there is a News and Views article about a paper, the News and Views author, for journalists so they can easily obtain comments on the articles before their own deadlines).

The benefits of peer review as a means of giving journalists confidence in new work published in journals are self-evident. Premature release to the media denies journalists that confidence. It also removes journalists’ ability to obtain informed reactions about the work from independent researchers in the field.

We also encourage scientists to communicate with each other about their results, before, during and after submission of their articles, as explained on the author and referees’ website here.

We welcome your views on our policies, in light of the Independent article and the explanations for our policies that we provide on our website.