The Future of Scholarly Scientific Communication at The Royal Society

The Royal Society is celebrating the 350th anniversary of the world’s first scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions, with a programme of special events, debates and other activities.

This week they hosted the first of two meetings to discuss the future of scholarly scientific communication.

Key stakeholders, including researchers, funders, university leaders, policy makers, publishers and data experts came together to discuss a variety of topics. The focus of the first meeting was on peer review, the use of impact metrics in research assessment and the impact of technology on scholarly publishing.

The “Is peer review fit for purpose?” session generated a particularly heated debate, with strong arguments being made on both sides. Richard Smith, former BMJ editor, made the controversial claim that “It is time to slaughter the sacred cow” of peer review.

Timo Hannay, our Managing Director, was one of those invited to attend the prestigious event. Inspired by the anniversary he recently wrote a piece for The Huffington Post sharing his thoughts and reflections on the future of scholarly communication and the impact of technology:

“The science journal in another 350, or even 35, years will need to be a different beast to the one we know today, not least because technology is also redefining science itself.”

“Journals, as containers of scientific knowledge and enablers of its dissemination, will have to change too, at least if they are to remain central to the tasks of doing and communicating research. For a start they, like science itself, will have to become more data-centric.”