Hi Christoph, I knew deep in your soul you are revolutionist ;)

My utopic suggestion would be:

develop an ultimate platform for publihing papers, existing only online. No paper journals at all, no IFs. The uploaded papers should be reviewed but the names of the reviewers are transparent (at least three). The platform should be separated into disciplines, accessible for all, with thorough search criteria an so on. The employees of ISI can now work on generating good algorithms for this platform. Only citations matter, which can be easiliy visible at the end of each manuscript. The "clicks" or "downloads" do not count. Only if other scientists refer to the published work in their own reports - that counts.

I actually think intense competition becomes self-limiting. Innovation, which is essential, is different from competition. Discoveries should be freely available for everyone, science after all is for the common good, where ideas should be shared and not “owned” for self-promotion. Less competition, and more encouragement for communication with others who can share in and understand the issues, as well as the general public, would do a lot of good…I think

I agree mostly with Maria Thomas. I wold add that the mainstream current leads (unfortunately) to reject or delay publication of really innovative papers. This happens mostly in Life Sciences; I think that things are different in Physics.

Hi Christoph,

From what I can judge, in the thread you mention, competition is seen as a curse rather than a boon.

Concerning the possibility to improve the research system, I think that the first thing is to distinguish between the various fields, because the problems that will meet, for instance, scientists in biomedical sciences, will not be the same as those encountered by mathematicians.

Masha, I am not so much a revolutionist, just happy to explore ideas :-) My utopia: trying to balance the interests of society (solve problems such as diseases, energy, technological advances etc), scientists (curiosity) and governments/funding agencies (most bang for the buck and boast with research output). There are some competing interests, obviously. I would say, as researchers, funded by tax money we owe a dept to society. Therefore I am fine with government funding prioritising issues relevant to society and that those funding is often funding of applied fields. However, funding should also cover high-risk high-gain undertakings in basic research to ensure that chance findings that are based on hunches and not only big mountains of already published evidence are possible. Then, governments would need metrics to decide who to fund as there are obviously unlimited numbers of things to explore in the universe...the first guideline of course would be to satisfy the interest of society. The other would have to be something to identify the individuals best suited to pull off the research. Right now it´s publication record. There are interesting discussions about IF etc... so I will not elaborate. (https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_your_views_on_the_recently_published_San_Francisco_Declaration_of_Research_Assessment_the_so-called_DORA_document2)

So right now the major problem with the current system is the high competition and the up-or-out system. And I would also add - TIME. I think everyone has too little time. The further you get in your career, the more administrative stuff (grant-meetings, grant report writing, ...) ends up on your plate and the less time you have to do what scientists should do (read the literature, supervise/mentor/educate, thoroughly review, plan, conduct and analyse AND publish research). But why is there so much to do and so little time? I think because the balance between people in the system and positions is tipped to the wrong side. Too many junior scientists and too few senior scientists. I think the number of students allowed into research-relevant subject should be limited more stringently; less PhD positions should be funded and the money should be redirected into more senior scientist positions. Then the workload could be better spread. The quality of eduction, supervision, review etc would improve. Additionally, if there are fewer people competing for the same position/grant, the focus could shift from easily measurable metrics (e.g. publication record) to a more holistic assessment of a scientist. I admit, if I was in a committee to decide who to employ, and I would have 120 applicants, I would most likely also pre-screen using a simple metric before looking at individuals....otherwise this would not be manageable beside all the other tasks one is to fulfil. So more shoulders to spread the work on and fewer people in the system.

Of course, if we reduce the number of PhD students and junior postdocs, who is going to do all the work? I think there should be also more funding for lab technician positions/research engineers and more appreciation for their work. This way, technical/methodological know-how would stay in labs over a longer time. In some labs, nowadays, technical and scientific know-how comes and goes with PhD-students and postdocs. With the proposed shift in the balance junior/senior scientists + increased number of technical staff, both scientific and technical knowledge would stay in labs over time and we´d have to invest less money in inventing the wheel over and over again. It would reduce competition; less people applying for the same jobs. It would allow holistic assessment of scientists and research project as there would be less to assess - so more time per "item".

so, that´s my utopia. Somehow it must go wrong somewhere, otherwise it´d be put into action somewhere and produce excellent research...and funding agencies around the world would adopt this.

So why is the current system so "successful" in establishing itself all over the world?

Good points, Daniel. Curse, not boon - somehow I took boon for a curse... . Also, good point about the different fields. I actually don´t know how it is in other fields than life sciences....will be interesting to get input from someone from chemistry/physics ...

@Andrew: Excellent - thank you!

Here is another related discussion about authorship and funding agencies:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Should_the_contribution_of_each_individual_author_of_an_article_be_valued_differently

I think the first thing to consider before trying to find solutions is the discrepancy between the fact that publications are made available everywhere and the economic competition between States. The financial support of States is for maintaining a high level of technology, in order to win the economic competition, and not at all for the interest of science.

My feeling is that, unfortunately, the present climate of the economical and political decline is not very conducive to the "improvement of the current research system ".