Regardless of one's interest in politics or academic publishing, people sometimes think they simply "live their lives", or "just do their work". They are not interested in the games and Spiel of the elite and politicians of their industry. Their lives are not touched by those. You can still do your thing and ignore the rest. Because, seemingly, it works. This is only partially true.
Politics - I don’t care
One can quietly live one's life, do one's best work, have a happy family life, and ignore the big spiel. Stating that ‘politics does not touch my life’ is not entirely true. In any country, the quality of infrastructure, bureaucracy, healthcare, education, public services, etc. depends on the elite and the degree to which they are corrupt.
Taking my homeland as an example, Slovakia has a high CPI index (Corruption Perceptions Index) when looking at the map of Europe.
- The roads are in a poor shape all over the country, even in the capital. Highways have been unfinished for decades despite promises of a number of prime ministers.
- Healthcare is on life support - brain drain is real. The public hospitals are in a desolate state.
- Public schools are hard to enroll in due to low capacity. Not to say the education quality is (often) left at the mercy of teachers, many of whom took the job as a last resort. This is due to the meager salaries, which gradually caused a degradation of the societal status of being a teacher.
I could continue, but you get the idea. Saying 'I just live my life and do not care about politics' is correct only on your personal interest level. But it influences your life daily through the quality of all the areas mentioned. Saying I do not care, we choose what to prioritize, consciously or not. And that can be a good thing. To cut away the noise, focusing on what is important to us is a highly needed quality in a world ridden by short attention spans. But country wide, it can be a letdown, eventually leading to the dark depths of the Platos' quote - One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Academic politics - I don’t care
Once you focus on your research and academic career, all is more sensible. You can directly influence your outcomes, giving a sense of order and control over your life.
Your continued academic success partially depends on where you publish the outcomes of your research and how many people ‘like it’. In other words, how many people cite your papers. It is tough to publish in top-tier journals, but that is good! Or is it? In some countries, like Finland, the journals where you can publish are ranked and limited. At least when asking for funding from the national research funding agency. On the page of their publishing forum you can find a complete list of journals where one has to publish to be considered for funding. If you do not publish in those, no funds for you.
Maybe this system is similar in your country. Perhaps more open - the choice of publication venue is left for you to decide. But, obviously, the ranking of journals is in place whether officially enforced or not. The system works, everyone uses it, so why should I care? If you belong to the top few percent of scientists, who get their papers published wherever they want, you do not need to. If you belong to the rest of the community, you may have faced the drawbacks of this system here and there, or maybe even often.
Have you ever felt the pressure to publish, lack of transparency and reproducibility, bias and gatekeeping, long delays to publishing, or limited ability to reuse, share, and build upon your own work? You see, these are all results of the current system. At the conception, this system served its constituents well. Over time, it has not changed much. And that is the issue here, ironically. Those with their thumb at the heartbeat of discoveries changing our world are forcing the publishing system in its present form. One that has not changed much over a long time, stifling the progress of the discovery. The same discovery the system is meant to foster. Sort of a chicken and egg problem. This system is perception based. More precisely, perception of a group of people in the publisher's ranks and a few academics. But not only them, also everyone else that is part of the system. The professors, post docs, doctoral students, albeit those in higher rank have more ability to shift the tide.
Thankfully, the law of big numbers does not fail even here. Every author has the power. The power of choice. After all, the journals need you, not the other way. The power is in the hands of the people, the content creators. Once you realize that, you can start making meaningful steps towards a systemic change, regardless of your seniority. How? There are many ways to start. For example, by choosing a different venue for your next paper. As simple as that. Or become an advocate for alternative funding evaluation systems in your country. I would love to know your ideas on how to make a change for the better - let me know in the comments.
#GradSchool #ECRchat, #research, #AcademicLife, #PeerReview, #AmReading, #PhDchat, #MakePublishingGreatAgain #Frelsi #EchoChamber #justdoingmywork
You can comment when you sign in.