I resigned today from the board of Genomics, where I have been an associate editor for the last few years. My resignation and my reasons for it are blogged at the UK Guardian.
It is not easy to do this publicly – a good friend heads the board, and I respect him and what the science of the journal seeks to achieve. But now I just think this way of publishing is wrong. Just wrong. My colleagues in South Africa in general don’t have access to the swathe of journals we take for granted in the west. Yet I was working to edit publications that were often written by people who are not in the mainstream western institutions.
How to move forwards?
First and foremost, we need to be able to see everything that our governments have paid us, using our taxes, to research.
Secondly, we need to address the ‘closed shop‘ that is peer review – we need to be able to engage interactively with a larger community, some of which have to be actual experts in the area.
Finally we need to address the tenure issue – High profile publications need to be defined by the actual impact of the work , as opposed to the perceived impact of the journal. These are *different* things.
I know this could not have been an easy decision. I hope others find inspiration in your example. I do.
You know you’re still listed on the Elsevier page for the editorial board of _Genomics_?
resigned only today – give time to let things work through the system.
Elsevier have a history of not removing ex-editors’ names from websites, that all
Thank you for denying Elsevier your gravitas! Science should be free.
Kudos to you. It sure was not an easy decision and you are an inspiration to us all (researchers).
Thank you for doing this Winston – it is time to take science back and make it available to everyone. Access to information is key to innovation.
As someone with a central role to the dissemination of knowledge at Harvard, it particularly means a lot to me that you comment David. I do hope that there is dialog and progress as we move forwards to freer access
Its an uphill battle but much progress has been made and Winhide´s resignation is a really wonderful mile stone