the building blocks of science

The Building Blocks of ScienceDerek Groen

2020 SCIENCEThanks go out to James Suter, Gary Davies, Moqi Groen-Xu, Miguel Bernabeu and Ulf Schiller for highly useful discussions.

Why do we want credit?● Why do we want credit, and what is it important for?

○ Funding proposals ■ Can you get the proposed work done,■ or can you “just” write good proposals?

○ Job applications ■ Do you have the skills to do the job?

○ Recognition

Examples of giving credit

● Mentioning contributors.● Rewarding top contributors.

○ e.g. Nobel Prize, competitive funding● Scoring and aggregating contributions.

○ e.g., publication count, citations, REF● Indirect

○ activity leads to something else that is given credit.

The Basics

Scientific Resources● Data● Software● Devices● Samples

Methods● Algorithms● Protocols● Models● Heuristics● Statistical

...and of course the research idea (more on that later).

Organisation● Create/manage research groups.● Handle/divert external

political and administrative duties.● Attract funding.

Essential for larger scientific undertakings.

Scrutiny● Peer review,

○ incl. post-publication.● Validation, reproduction.● Correction.● Impartiality is key.

Essential for the long term integrity of science.

Vision● Research ideas.● Identify gaps.● Long-term research

directions.● Policy guidance.● Impartiality is key.

Essential for the long term integrity of science.

Academic exposure● Well-cited publications.● Invited Presentations.● Academic awards

Public exposure

● Press releases / ● News articles.● Appearances in the media.● “Expert” roles.

Uptake● Uptake by society and industry.● Spin-offs.● New jobs.● Economic growth.

These are the building blocks we need

Questions

● For which building blocks do we not give credit?

● And for which ones only indirect credit?

● How many of these skills would we expect/want an individual academic to have?

My current impression of credit in my field

Extra slides

Credit & Scientific Resources● Software and data papers are gaining acceptance.

○ This is an ongoing effort.● Repositories (e.g., Github) help quantify software contributions.

● What about other types of scientific resources?○ e.g., samples or bespoke devices.

● We need to ensure credit is due for creators of all types of scientific resources. (“Resource paper”..?)

Credit & Methods● Many venues for methods papers, and methods papers

are relatively straightforward to write, once the method exists.

● Do the existing venues capture the diversity of methods out there?

● Unsure here, perhaps methods are relatively well-credited already?

Credit & Organization● Credit for leading projects & students.● Credit for obtaining funding.

● No differentiation between well and poorly led endeavours, as final reports are largely kept private.

● We need to curate and aggregate reviews of ongoing research projects.

Credit & Scrutiny● “Reviewed for Nature” looks nice on a CV.● Named reviewing emerges (PeerJ).● Post-publication review emerges.● Little differentiation between reviewing 1 and 100

papers for Nature.● Little differentiation between good and bad reviews.● We need to collect and aggregate reviewing activities,

and identify the best reviewers in our fields.● Perhaps even a career path for the reviewer?

Credit & Vision● Research ideas are indirectly credited through papers & funding.● Vision may be indirectly credited by positions in scientific

committees.● Vision and ideas fundamental to research, but no direct credit

system is known to me.● Papers/funding can result from ideas from non-authors/Co-Is.● If we want to encourage vision and creativity, then we need to

directly credit it.● Patents may be too heavyweight for this purpose. ● Perhaps explicitly credit vision contributions to papers and

contributions to long term research and policy in science?

Credit & Exposure/Uptake● Direct credit for academic exposure.● Altmetrics etc. contributes to quantifying public

exposure.● Uptake common indirectly credited (e.g., through

external funding, industrial focus of funding calls).

● Science could benefit from more systematic crediting of public exposure and uptake ○ e.g., similar to how academic exposure is handled today.

What about teaching?

We could probably make a similar, but separate graph for teaching...