When it’s also big science, the careers of those involved can suffer.

Whatever we call it, investment in research will lead the way to important short- and long-term discoveries.

Many biologists are still reluctant to submit preprints, in part out of concern that doing so will allow others to “scoop” their work and undermine their chances of publication in a prestigious journal. I would like to rebut that concern, among others, and to share our research group’s first experience submitting a preprint manuscript.

Right now, the overwhelming majority of peer reviewers, the scientists who scrutinize the latest studies, aren't paid for their labor. This is completely ridiculous. Peer review may be the most important part of the scientific enterprise, and it is not incentivized monetarily.

It takes an average of 15 clicks for a researcher to find and access a journal article. This time could be much better spent

In this era of billionaires and unequal funding, where is research going? And perhaps more importantly, how will our changing resources affect the training, success, and diversity of the scientists of our future?

Just as the peer review system of journal publication is itself an ever-evolving construction, so too are the unspoken rules that govern which scientists share what. 

Simply adding an ‘open access’ option to the existing prestige-based journal system at ever increasing costs is not the fundamental change publishing needs, says Bianca Kramer and Jeroen Bosman 

Transparency is especially important because science appears to be facing a major credibility crisis right now. The high percentage of bronze OA means that many papers are vulnerable to being re-enclosed. Librarians have failed to make institutional repositories either interesting or useful. The rise of pay-to-publish gold OA is a real problem, especially for less wealthy countries.

Lack of transparency and unconscious biases make it hard to spot inequality.  Scientists pride themselves on objectivity, and may, therefore, be slow to see how unconscious biases alter their judgment and actions.

Balancing due process with the academic community's right to know is no easy task, but critics say more could be done to weed out bad actors.  Many universities halt investigations after an accused scientist departs, leaving future employers blind to the researcher’s history of allegations.

As #MeToo comes to college campuses, Kelly Baker's work shows just how deeply sexism is embedded in academia.

Until recently, many university and society journals operated at a loss. To return to their earlier significant role in scientific dissemination, scientific societies and universities will have to return to their earlier acceptance of knowledge sharing as part of their broader public service, rather than their more recent exploitation of publications as revenue generators.

The open access movement has prompted a shift towards retention of rights and the use of creative commons licenses to control how works are used by publishers. However, in many cases, researchers continue to agree to standard assignment terms offered by publishers without fully investigating or understanding them.

Suggestions for how scientists, specifically male scientists, can undermine the alienating culture of sexual harassment that exists in STEM.

Many Budget 2018 measures appear to have origins in proposals advanced by the science community.

An analysis of drug studies shows that most participants are white, even though trials are being done in more countries.

Wellcome Trust's Director of Science Jim Smith addresses how Wellcome should identify the most able and dedicated researchers, and how it should support, and recognise, team science.

Scientific integrity needs to apply to how researchers treat people, not just to how they handle data.

Funders should assign research grants via a lottery system to reduce human bias, says Dorothy Bishop.

With the Springer Nature IPO in the offing, it's important to remember that publishing continues to outperform perception.

The US now faces a dilemma over the future of this national achievement and the supporting arrangements making it sustainable. The ‘social contract’ for science and research now looks more tentative than at any time since the Space Race.

In the context of a recent proposal to exclude research from consideration at the Environmental Protection Agency, John Ioannidis points out that "perceived perfection is not a characteristic of science, but of dogma" and envisions how governments can promote a standard of openness in science.

When scientists in California and around the world finally solved the mystery of gravitational waves last year, only one question remained: Who should get credit for the discovery?

In the digital era, each publisher has established its own content platform, to the detriment of the researcher experience. Discovery is fragmented, leading to substantial library investment in order to provide single-index whole-collection search.

There's a great deal of concern about a lack of diversity in senior academic roles. But Rachel Handforth's research suggests that problems start much earlier along the academic career path.

Collecting, annotating and curating data of universities, funding organizations and publishers manually is both wasteful and impossible to do comprehensively. If these data were available in a globally standardized, digital, open format, this effort could be redirected towards analysis and improving research information and administration.

Across time, public understanding about how science works is affected by journalism. A journalist, with very little extra effort, can increase the accuracy of public understanding and minimize public vulnerability to distortions of science.

We call for bringing sanity back into scientific judgment exercises. Despite all number crunching, many judgments - be it about scientific output, scientists, or research institutions - will neither be unambiguous, uncontroversial, or testable by external standards nor can they be otherwise validated or objectified.

Sneha Kulkarni from Editage takes a look at the ever-increasing global scientific output, and asks questions about quantity versus quality.