There are very few opportunities to 'advertise' our research, of which are expensive (annual international conferences) and infrequent (annual v daily). If you could pay to 'advertise' your work online, would you? And, how much money would you part with (monthly, yearly) to have a larger audience discover your work? $2/month per paper? $10/year per paper?
I guess the larger question is:
My guess is it could make it easier to manipulate scientific reputation and, simultaneously, make it harder for some researchers to break through the glass ceiling (particularly, for younger researchers from lesser developing countries). Maybe it is idealistic, but I think that we all should strive to create the world, in which quality of one's work would be the only form of self-promotion.
Science can truly progress if the best research reaches the surface, not the most advertised one!
@YelenaNovikova Although I agree in principle with your opinion, conferences, annual international meetings and the like are mostly paid-for events where academics share (i.e. advertise) their work. A great presentation, like a great advertisement, can only be as good as the product (research) allows it to be. Of course, scientific merit should be judged on the quality of research, but that does not preclude the requirement of that research being discovered in the first place.
We try to publish in more widely circulated journals to reach more and applicable readers...is that not just another means of allowing the most amount of 'advertising' of our work?
You are certainly correct about paid-for events and conferences. In a way, it just shows us that the existing system is already imperfect. Online advertising would be the next step in that direction. Humans do have a tendency to complicate systems by creating new sophisticated tools. When those tools become overly sophisticated, systems could eventually collapse (good analogy would be our financial markets). I believe none of us would want science to stagnate.
If anything, things like ResearchGate is nothing but an indication that people want to go back to basics. Essentially, tools like ResearchGate allow people to share their research in a more traditional sense of the concept. I would call it desophistication of that same system.
To determine the budget of an advertising campaign, we need to know the potential audience terget of the advertising campaign and potential estimated results.
Best wishes
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