Climbing Mt Peer Review: No shame in second place

In the final of our three part special on the changing attitudes and approaches of publishers, reviewers and scientists to  scientific publishing, Maiko Kitaoka tells us that nothing less than the mental health of scientists and a potential cure for the reproducibility crisis is at stake when it comes to accepting 'scooped research'

The scientific community runs on publications. They advance the field’s knowledge forward and, for better or for worse, are a measure of productivity. Papers are the final output of countless experiments and hours spent designing and troubleshooting with the hope of revealing something new. They become a line on your CV, demonstrating how accomplished you are because you have something tangible to justify all of those days and weeks and years spent in the lab.

Unfortunately, with this territory also comes the fear of being scooped, where a competing lab publishes your results before you can. It’s an invisible person you cannot see and you cannot control who is doing your exact experiments and doing them better, cleaner, faster.

Sometimes you know who they are; sometimes they appear out of nowhere. Imagine opening up your computer and realising that some ­– or all – of your project is published. Is my work still publishable anymore if it describes the same results? How can I salvage it for publication? Can I still graduate? Do I need to start a new project now from scratch? How will my career ever take off if I can’t even publish the project I’m working on? Not the best feeling in the world, put simply. Add in the ever-present imposter syndrome, and it is an overwhelming sinking sensation.

Jumping through scoops Thus, it was not surprising that the Public Library of Science (PLoS) made a splash earlier this year when they announced that PLoS Biology would be accepting scooped manuscripts. The response on Twitter showcased the number of scientists at all career levels applauding this new effort.

Essentially, PLoS Biology has agreed to publish manuscripts where the findings have already been published elsewhere in the past six months, on the grounds that these represent complementary studies and confirm the reproducibility of the original paper:

“This new policy, acknowledging the value of complementary studies, therefore addresses the current concern regarding the reproducibility, or lack thereof, of scientific findings. Currently, the gold standard for demonstrating that an article is based on solid results is a replication study. These studies are generally conducted after publication and are considered critically important for supporting and advancing scientific theories. We argue that the ‘organic’ replication of a complementary study is even better than a post-hoc and often costly replication study for supporting conclusions.”

PLoS hits a key point here – in today’s political environment, where there does seem to be an untrustworthy view of science, not to mention the speed of research and technological advances, it’s more important than ever that published studies are reproducible. It lends credence to all groups conducting the work, as well as the greater scientific community. We are all involved in maintaining reproducibility ­– and the public holds us all accountable.

Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, this new policy underlies a key point in science: Just because one scientist published first does not make that person the better scientist. So much of science is based on luck, timing, and circumstances. Being the first to publish is not an indicator of extreme work ethic and long hours, or even of future productivity and potential. Perhaps they were working on the project for several years already, making small steps until suddenly the pieces came together in one go. Perhaps they gained some insight, some mental leap, at a conference or by chatting about the project with their friends.

Whatever the circumstances are, there is no particular reason why one group “beats” another group, and it’s nobody’s fault if you get scooped (barring extreme and unusual circumstances).

Brain space When this announcement was made, I was relieved. PLoS Biology is supporting “high visibility for well-supported, significant research findings.” This recognises “both the value of validating results and the researchers undertaking the work. Highlighting replication studies will ultimately prove positive for the public perception of science.”

There are so many incredibly talented scientists, especially early in their careers, who are spending their brain space worrying about getting scooped when they could be designing new and intriguing experiments or simply doing their science in a more relaxed mindset. I am grateful that my lab doesn’t suffer from a lot of intense competition to publish compared to other labs, but I can see the toll it takes on my fellow scientists.

This is a great step forward to making the scientific publishing process less stressful and terrifying, especially when we rely on it so much to advance our careers.

The PLoS Biology Staff Editors. The importance of being second. PLoS Biol, 16(1):e2005203. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2005203

Author

Maiko Kitaoka is a PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies mechanisms of cell division and chromosome segregation using various Xenopus frog species. Check out her blog at https://maikokitaoka.wordpress.com, and learn more about her on her website at https://mkitaoka.github.io. Or twitter @MaikoKitaoka