Gustav Nilsonne, MD, PhD, is associate professor of neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet.
Nilsonne is co-chair of the EOSC Association task force “researcher careers, recognition, and credit.

Presentation:
Replacing Academic Journals
Scientific publishing is beset by a triple crisis of reproducibility, affordability, and functionality. An important root cause is the monopoly-like status of scholarly journals and publishers. Digital technology promises ways out of this lock-in, but at the same time there is an increasing risk of capture of new digital academic workflows by commercial actors. A shift to open platforms, governed by the scientific community, is overdue. Traditional journal publishing can be replaced by a decentralised, evolvable network connected by open standards. Journal prestige as an indicator of quality can be replaced by systematic assessment of the content of research. Solutions are possible by redirecting funding streams from subscription deals to new infrastructures. A well-functioning market can be built on the principle of open tenders. Such a system can spur innovation and evolution of scientific communication and assessment.