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Liz Haswell's avatar

The current culture around scientific publication is incredibly frustrating, and serving as an editor is actually part of what pushed me out of academic science. So much effort and money put into lines on a CV that could be put towards asking new questions or communicating those results more broadly. I just finished reading “Laboratory Life”, a sociological study of a lab at the Salk in the 1970s, and the author describes papers as the main product of the lab. Not knowledge, or understanding—papers. UGH!

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Bethann Garramon Merkle's avatar

Terry, I heartily agree with all of this. I'm non-tenure-track and came to academia sideways, so I don't have a fancy publication list. My CV and annual review docs look very unusual compared to most folks I work with, but I'm determined to account for the work I have done and the work I do. The irony is that I spend a lot of my time in academia working to reframe/help others reframe what "counts." And yet, the only bits of it that are countable are things like a commentary in review right now (about the exact issues you detailed) that has taken us two years to write. It has been enormously satisfying to write it. But wouldn't it be nice if we hadn't needed to, and could have used all that time, instead, to do the good work we hope the paper helps people advocate for!?! (Don't get me started on the time we've put into trying to get RCN funding to build a strategic coaching program to teach UBE academics how to effectively advocate for and lead the kinds of changes we're calling for...and that you are! We're about 4 years in on that and still no dice. The reviewers hate our systems change pitch. They just want to see lesson plans, it seems.)

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