ScienceMatters, the next-generation science publishing company has just been distinguished by the European Commission as a reference for scientific observations reporting. The company name is listed in the EU guidelines on publishing scientific observations and online data management plans on open access and open science (http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/docs/h2020-funding-guide/cross-cutting-issues/open-access-data-management/data-management_en.htm#A1-template). “This great recognition will bring us a lot of visibility amongst scientists and create new links between ScienceMatters, research centers, universities and key academic opinions leaders”, explained Lawrence Rajendran, Founder and CEO of ScienceMatters. “We bet on that key milestone and on the support of MassChallenge Switzerland that accelerates us since June, to continue to build our online-platform with the aim to reform the science publishing industry and galvanize scientific progress”.
Current “publish or perish” culture of scientific research is hindering real scientific progress at two different levels. In one hand, the success of a scientist is measured by where they published, but not what they have published. Scientists are pressured to publish only “sexy” and full stories and in high-impact journals. This leads to loss of many scientifically and ethically sound observations. In some unfortunate cases, this also promoted data fraud. “Time, human resources and money are wasted in non-reproducible results, and not to mention the frustrations most students and researchers are experiencing”, added Lawrence Rajendran. “In the second hand, most scientific publications are out of reach to general public. Science publishers limit the access of scientific literature by charging unaffordable fee. Not only scientists pay to publish but also need to pay to get access to the published work”.
ScienceMatters aims to bring back the way key discoveries used to be published. It allows the publication of single scientific observations, ensures that the data is evaluated solely on its merits, with the support of a triple-blind peer review system and allows free flow of latest scientific observations among academic, industries researchers and general public, thus democratizing science. Instead of measuring the number of citations, ScienceMatters’ alternative metric, called MattericTM can provide metrics on how impactful an observation is using network-based algorithm to provide a more objective measure. Taken together, the vision of ScienceMatters is to create an internet of validated science.
ScienceMatters launched the inaugural issue in February this year. Since then there are already more than 50 publications. It has 22 scientific advisory board members chaired by the Nobel laureate Prof. Tom Südhof and around 600 editorial board members from some of the best institutes around the world.
The company is based in Zurich and accelerated by MassChallenge Switzerland in Renens (Vaud). $
Source: ScienceMatters