I won’t be Bullied Into Bad Science!
Laurent Gatto
I won’t be #BulliedIntoBadScience!
Laurent Gatto https://lgatto.github.io @lgatt0
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Together on a journey
Trust - I need to trust you to stand on your shoulders.
Reproducibility - it’s not only your shoulders I will stand on.
Openness - I need to know what I am going to stand on. And I want everybody to be able to know.
So what is this talk about?
So what is this talk about? It’s about the science that we are passionate about.
But that is not always the science that is practised.
(more about this later)
I have been constantly harassed by superiors to modify data in order to provide better agreement with known experimental values in order to make the paper look better for publishing in prestigious journals.
The Bullied Into Bad Science campaign is an initiative by early career researchers (ECRs) for early career researchers who aim for a fairer, more open and ethical research and publication environment.
Because a good researcher and a successful researcher are not the same thing.
Background
- Elsevier/JISC negotiations (mid 2016) - FAIL
Background
- Elsevier/JISC negotiations (mid 2016) - FAIL
- Discussions at the University of Cambridge (end 2016) - mixed results
Background
- Elsevier/JISC negotiations (mid 2016) - FAIL
- Discussions at the University of Cambridge (end 2016) - mixed results
- Informal discussions with pro VC (start 2017) - FAIL
Background
- Elsevier/JISC negotiations (mid 2016) - FAIL
- Discussions at the University of Cambridge (end 2016) - mixed results
- Informal discussions with pro VC (start 2017) - FAIL
- Going public with #BulliedIntoBadScience (June 2017)
Success?
- Corina just won a Shuttleworth Flash Grant for #BulliedIntoBadScience! WIN
Success?
- Corina just won a Shuttleworth Flash Grant for #BulliedIntoBadScience! WIN
- Numbers: 140 ECRs have signed it - 73 non-ECRs support it - ?
Success?
- Corina just won a Shuttleworth Flash Grant for #BulliedIntoBadScience! WIN
- Numbers: 140 ECRs have signed it - 73 non-ECRs support it - ?
- Feedback - WIN (all good, no bad)
Success?
- Corina just won a Shuttleworth Flash Grant for #BulliedIntoBadScience! WIN
- Numbers: 140 ECRs have signed it - 73 non-ECRs support it - ?
- Feedback - WIN (all good, no bad)
- In Cambridge - FAIL. (But that doesn’t matter, as long as others benefit. It never was meant to be a Cambridge thing anyway) …
Success?
- Corina just won a Shuttleworth Flash Grant for #BulliedIntoBadScience! WIN
- Numbers: 140 ECRs have signed it - 73 non-ECRs support it - ?
- Feedback - WIN (all good, no bad)
- In Cambridge - FAIL. (But that doesn’t matter, as long as others benefit. It never was meant to be a Cambridge thing anyway) …
- … Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) in Cambridge: “No way on God’s earth” - FAIL
Continuing the fight
- Approach prominent academics directly.
Continuing the fight
- Approach prominent academics directly.
- Evidence to the UK Parliament Science and Technology Committee inquiry on Research Integrity.
Continuing the fight
- Approach prominent academics directly.
- Evidence to the UK Parliament Science and Technology Committee inquiry on Research Integrity.
- Update our web page, translations, regular blog posts, ….
Continuing the fight
- Approach prominent academics directly.
- Evidence to the UK Parliament Science and Technology Committee inquiry on Research Integrity.
- Update our web page, translations, regular blog posts, ….
- Bring the discussion about DORA to the Regent House at the University of Cambridge?
All this isn’t without some struggle…
Everyday struggle
- And my day job? Why do ECR need to fight for better, open and more trustworthy research?
Everyday struggle
- And my day job? Why do ECR need to fight for better, open and more trustworthy research?
- What’s the impact of being an open activist on my academic career? Good, IMHO!
More struggle
- So much work, so little time. There are too many fights to pick - pick the battles that matter most to you.
More struggle
- So much work, so little time. There are too many fights to pick - pick the battles that matter most to you.
- There are multiple ways to fight a battle, and often several are needed in parallel: official procedure and community efforts.
It’s not only personal - standing on the shoulders of ECRs.
No researcher is too junior to fix science!
(Not my quote, find the reference here)
We won’t be #BulliedIntoBadScience!
Thank you for listening!
These slides are available under a creative common CC-BY license. You are free to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) for any purpose, even commercially .