Scientific Publishing: Enough is Enough

You can curate and assess science without an editor.

The goal shifted from telling polished stories to uncovering useful truths.

We’re in a bit of a catch-22 as a scientific community in that we don’t have a solution to jump to, but we also can’t develop one well if we continue with journals. Prohibiting journals is our deliberate forcing function as we support such development at Astera and The Navigation Fund. By removing journals as an option, our scientists have to get m... See more

Several structural features make the system hard to reform:

• Illusion of truth and finality: Publication is treated as a stamp of approval. Mistakes are rarely corrected. Retractions are stigmatized.


• Artificial scarcity: Journals want to be first to publish, fueling secrecy and fear of being “scooped.” Also, author credit is distributed through rigi

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I no longer believe that incremental fixes are enough. Science publishing must be built anew. I help oversee billions of dollars in funding across several science and technology organizations. We are expanding our requirement that all scientific work we fund will not go towards traditional journal publications. Instead, research we support should b... See more