Somewhere down at the chthonic end of Jennifer Rohn’s preternaturally pellucid blog, Pedro Beltrao offered this eldtrich provocative comment:
I also would like to see editors having a stronger say in the research agenda. They spend so much time reading, researching and deciding what should be interesting for a certain community, why not be more vocal about their ideas?
My first reaction on reading this was oooh, don’t tempt me! followed swiftly by be careful what you wish for, Pedro, culminating in don’t editors do this already?
Because editors usually hide under a kind of invisibility cloak, it’s easy to assume that journals function entirely reactively. Papers are submitted, some are sent for review, a fraction are published. That’s that.
But even this caricature of how a journal works conceals much subjectivity. First, there is the decision about which papers to be sent to review. At Nature, this decision is made by the editors, either individually or collectively, occasionally supplemented by external informal review. And then there is the process of peer review, a whole subject in itself. At both levels, it’s important to remember that editors and referees are not robots, but human beings.
However, editors are not simply reactive, and do work to set the agenda – though not in quite the way that Pedro envisages. Editors commission reviews and feature (‘front-half’) articles on new and emerging disciplines or topics, partly because they are interesting, but also to encourage research papers (‘back-half’) in the disciplines or topics concerned. Editors also go to conferences and visit laboratories, searching out the latest and newest.
What editors don’t do is go on the stump, making general statements about the specific subjects they’d like to see papers cover, and what they don’t like. There are many good reasons for this. The first is that all papers are welcome, simply because some of the most important papers are the most unexpected. Another, I think, is that to be too specific about what sort of things we like is to throw the game of science: editors aren’t in the business of shaping science, they are there to select the best papers for their journals. The two are not mutually exclusive, but they are distinct.
Now, I feel I have a nose for the subjects I want to see papers cover. I think I know what’s hot, and what’s not. But I’m not about to publish a list of what my priorities are. That’s for you to guess.
I think I can boil down what a Nature editor likes to see in any paper into just two words – surprise me.
And no doubt the research that editors would most like to see published won’t match the priorities of the major funding agencies. It’s hard enough getting funding these days without making people choose between funding and publishing their work!
Good point, Cath, and a very hard one to answer. I suspect that the wish-lists of editors, publishers and funding agencies have a considerable degree of overlap. But there is also what publishers and accountants think, which brings in the looming spectre of shhh … You-Know-Who. [You mean Impact Factor and Citation Ratings? – Ed]. You might say that, Ed., – I could not possibly comment.
Henry – chthonic, eldtrich? Have you been at the Lovecraft again? Give my regards to the Cluxxthlu.
In Trillion Year Spree, Brian Aldiss likened the names of Lovecraft’s demons – Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, Tsathoggua and so on – to anagrams of breakfast cereals.
Presumably there is considerable overlap between authors and peer-reviewers of journals and funding panels?
Though I agree with the principle that the criteria for deciding whether to fund a research programme differ from those used to evaluate a paper for publication.