Science Colab: empowering scientific communities to publish, review and curate their research
Research articles are submitted to scholarly journals to enable peer evaluation, public endorsement, and
wide communication. By authoring peer-reviewed publications, researchers gain recognition for their
work, particularly when published in high-impact journals. However, these opportunities are neither
inclusive, nor equitable, nor transparent. Science Colab is leveraging the increasing popularity of preprints
to provide an alternative model that democratises scientific publishing. Authors first publish their work as
a preprint so that it can be openly reviewed by the community and eventually curated as a version of
record. Our first community endeavour, Biophysics Colab, provides collaborative and constructive peer
review of biophysical preprints without charge, aiming to improve the quality of these studies within a
transparent framework. We publicly endorse studies that address a research question with rigour, and will
soon begin to curate such studies as journal articles that will be indexed in the usual way. In the future, we
will develop a not-for-profit business model that compensates reviewers and curators for their time and
expertise. By encouraging others to adopt this model, we envisage a future in which research is fairly
evaluated, openly communicated and its significance recognised independently of publication venue.
Date: 2 May 2024, 10:00 (Thursday, 2nd week, Trinity 2024)
Venue: Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Building, off South Parks Road OX1 3QU
Venue Details: Seminar Room 2 (20-138)
Speakers: Speaker to be announced
Organising department: Department of Biochemistry
Organiser: Professor Simon Newstead (University of Oxford,)
Host: Professor Simon Newstead (University of Oxford,)
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editor: Alvaro Cubillana Salas