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2025 New Directions Keynote
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2025 New Directions Keynote
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Segment:0 .
Everybody ready to get started. Welcome. Thank you all for being here for attending SPS 2025 new direction seminar. Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome. You're either in person here in beautiful DC or online with us, and we're so pleased that you could be with us today. I'm lettie Conrad, new directions working group co-lead, along with the amazing Jenny Herbert of aip publishing, who is attending virtually.
And I think this might be a new thing, one co-lead in each spot, bringing a sense of place to both the online and the in-person. I am a product R&D consultant, spending much of my time lately as product experience architect at leblancs with Tim Lloyd. I have had the pleasure of working with the education committee now for the last three years on the new directions programs, and I'm going to now hand the mic to my friend and colleague, Jenny Herbert.
Hello, welcome to New directions 2025. We are so excited to have you. I'm Jenny Herbert, as lettie said, and I lead product operations and researcher experience operations and programming at the American Institute of Physics publishing for medical reasons. I am coming to you today from Pittsburgh. So a big welcome to everyone who is actually in the room at the Au.
I can see, like the camera of all of you there, and I'm so jealous. I miss seeing you. And to everyone who's joining us from around the world and their offices and homes, we're so excited that you joined us. Also, we are so grateful that you carved out time to join the conversation with us today. Whether you are in DC or whether you're at your own house, I wanted to give a huge Thank you to the volunteer working group for all of their hard work developing the program and the connection opportunities that we introduced this year.
Beyond the program, the folks that are on the slide have full time day jobs and gave so much time and energy into making what I think is truly going to be an excellent seminar. So I'm not going to read all of the names. But if you see anyone on this slide in the room or around online, you know, give them a big Pat on the back, give them a cookie if you have one. They've done a lot of work and they're really awesome.
We're so glad that they've done all of this. As we look ahead to next year's seminar, I also want to invite anyone listening to reach out if you're interested in joining the planning committee. The planning committee is really fun. We're a nice group. We primarily plan from January to October, so it's not year round and it's actually really active.
So you get to actually do things like you get to make the session. So it's Audit Committee that you get on where you're not really sure what to do. We can totally put you to work. So if you're interested, get in touch. We would love to have you. Another critical group to Thank are our event sponsors. SSP is a really wonderful community.
And events like this one provide so much value. Our sponsors are really what enable SSP to do this kind of thing. So a big Thank you to Cadmore media, data conversion laboratory, Digital Science and Silverchair. Your support truly means so much to us. We are so grateful that you keep engaging with the community. Thank you for sponsoring us. Awesome! yes.
Thank you. Before we get started, we have a couple of housekeeping notes. So for those of you here irl in the room, the Wi-Fi password is capital W. Welcome to 0% And that should be on the slide as well as flyers and handouts both that you received when you checked in, as well as on the table for everyone. The meeting hashtag is SSP and 2025. So please, I'm not going to use the T word.
LinkedIn blue sky the feed of your choice SSP and 2025. And please go ahead and silence those devices. You know, as Jenny said, carving out time both in person and online. It takes putting on some blinders, but it's worth it. So zone in with us. Tune out the world as a courtesy to yourselves and to speakers and your fellow attendees. We will have closed captioning enabled for all sessions, and we work hard to host New directions as an interactive hybrid event for both remote and live attendees.
So to those in the room when speaking during a session or asking a question, please always stand up to one of these microphones. Some sessions will have folks roving with microphones, but for all attendees. When asking a question, please identify yourself, your name, and your affiliation. Now virtual attendees, welcome. Woo!
Thank you for joining us today. We are so excited that you're here with us virtually. You are filling this space, whether you're in the room or not. Our goal is to host an engaging hybrid event, so please give us a shout. Use the chat feature, the Q&A, the expressions. All the amazing Zoom features that are on our new events platform.
The amazing Jackie Lord, SSPS marketing and operations manager, will be taking your questions. She's over there in the corner here in the room. She'll be helping to bring that chat and sharing them in the room with panelists. So if you have a question that you'd like to hear asked, put it in the chat. You can do that either in the room or if you are joining us from your home office or remote office, and use the preferable app feature to get Jackie's attention.
That will make sure that she sees your question and raises it for the panelists. So she will go to a microphone and share your question there. We do have volunteers also remotely watching online to ensure everything is working as it should, but if you can't see or hear anything, if you have any problems of any kind, please let us know. Please indicate that in the meeting chat or tell someone in the room.
So those of us who are here, you can again engage on the virtual platform on the Zoom events platform. You should have received an email that will allow you to join the Zoom events. You can also scan the QR code on the handout that was given to you at registration. So if you'd like to participate in the chat in that way, please feel free. And that will also enable captions on your device.
If that's useful. Zoom let Zoom launch as long and as long as your status is set to in person, which is what it should be. The audio should be streaming. So just be sure that you're logged in to the audio. If you're having any audio problems, please let us know. The recordings of these presentations should be available on the Zoom events platform within about 24 hours.
Once they're posted, they will be available until the end of December of this year. And if you again, you need any sort of assistance, please post a message or email us at SSP. Org Jenny, over to you for a couple more comments. All right. So we actually have an app. SSP has an app. So for additional networking and information, please download the engage app to network with your fellow New directions attendees.
This is SSPS year round app so you can access the program, additional information and message other attendees. So if there's someone that you saw speak or that you see across the room who you'd really like to talk to, you can message them in our app. A quick note on SSPS code of conduct in today's meeting. We are committed to diversity and equity, and providing an inclusive meeting environment that fosters open dialogue and the free expression of ideas free of harassment, discrimination, and hostile conduct.
We ask all participants, whether speaking or in chat, to consider and debate relevant viewpoints in an orderly, respectful and fair manner. For additional information on the code of conduct and how to report a violation. You can see the meeting information tabs in either SSP, engage or Zoom events, and you can also read more about it on the QR code that is on the slide right now.
All right. Next, we have SSP antitrust policy. I think there might be a slide for this. Perfect SSP is committed to complying with competition and antitrust laws. Please avoid discussing anything regarding pricing, market allocation, boycotts or other topics that could be interpreted as anti-competitive.
Don't get sued. And with that, off to you, lettie. Thank you. Awesome OK. SSP merchandise if you didn't notice the swag, please support SSP by purchasing SSP or Scholarly Kitchen gear. You can purchase at the registration desk or of course, buy online. Now this evening, October 7, we have two events in for in-person attendees this evening.
So at 6:00 PM, directly after the seminar finishes up, please join us for an informal social hour at busboys and poets. And then at 7:00 715, a handful of us are hosting dinner dialogues at various restaurants nearby. So if you'd like to see where we're eating and if you'd like to see what the dinner options are, please sign up by about noon today. Now, if you didn't receive an email, I heard a couple of folks who couldn't find that.
No before you go email on your registration pamphlet and on the table, you'll see a QR code for the dinner dialogues. And if you didn't, for whatever reason, grab that sheet as you came in. It's just at the reg desk. OK, so for tomorrow's events, October 8, if you have time, join us.
We are directly after the seminar closes around 12:30. We'll have a few informal offsite lunches. We've also arranged for a tour of the American Geophysical Union building that we're in right now to check out all the amazing energy saving features. So if you're interested in that, meet us in the lobby at 1:30 PM tomorrow. And Jenny, back to you for one last comment to kick us off. Now, if you are listening to these events that are happening in person and you're virtual and you're thinking, are you kidding me.
They told me there would be cool virtual events and now I don't get to go to an Au tour. Don't worry, we have something for you. So virtual attendees and in-person attendees are welcome to join the virtual break room. When you're looking at the like the lobby area of the web page or app, there's something that is called. Let's see here. I think it's called October 7 virtual break room.
Tomorrow it will be called October 8 virtual break room. If you join that, it's a Zoom room where there will be moderators there at specific intervals, which was in the know before you go email. And I think it's also written in that virtual break room. The session. It says when we'll have moderators there, but you can if you want to go in and see if someone else is there, you can join it.
Whenever we have a miro board where people this morning were sharing pictures of their pets and information about where they're located and what they're interested in. If you're interested in seeing pet photos from other people in the industry, feel free to check out the link to the Miro board that was shared in the lobby chat. There's some great photos in there. Feel free to add your own pet photos. But go ahead and join us.
You can scan the QR code or access the link in the description of the virtual break room session in Zoom events. And with that, now we'll actually let you hear the program that you came here for. So let me take us away. Thank you. Jenny, without further ado, let me introduce you to our keynote speaker for today, Megan Phelan.
Megan is the communications director for the science family of journals, where she oversees efforts to boost the visibility of all forthcoming science family of journal content for reporters porters worldwide. Prior to joining r.a.s. in 2013, Magan served as a senior Writer at air worldwide, where she interacted with more than 65 PhD level scientists and engineers to communicate advances in wind engineering, seismology, climate science, seismology, narratology, seismology, climate science, and other fields.
Previously, Magan was senior Writer and editor at the Memorial sloan-kettering Cancer Center. Magan holds a bachelor's degree in biology and Spanish from Gettysburg college and a master's degree in science writing from the Johns Hopkins University. In 2008 2008, Magan received a Fulbright scholarship to work with Doctor Juan Antonio raga at the University of Valencia to help determine the cause of morbillivirus resurgence among small crustaceans.
Crustaceans you're going to have to pronounce all of these things. Magan, I am doing this. No service. Megan has also completed science reporting, internships with science as well as national Public Radio, and has freelanced for various outlets, including anesthesiology news. Megan, if before I butcher any more words, please join us for our keynote and welcome, Megan.
All right. Great sound is on. That was wonderful. Thank you. Ready? OK. OK so back in the spring, my team and I found ourselves in a tough spot.
We work every week to communicate new research to reporters, and our goal is to inspire coverage. That's accurate. And in the spring, looking across the pipeline of papers coming up, one study in particular caught our attention. Bob, the clicker doesn't like me. Cool perfect.
OK so this study that we saw in the spring, it was coming up. It wasn't published yet. It reported on the impact of taurine, an amino acid on human aging, a topic of great public interest. Perfect Yeah. But two years before we remembered very well. We had published a study that seemed on the face to say the opposite.
And this is it. This one in the screen. I think we clicked ahead. So to summarize, the older study had said the amino acid taurine declined as humans age, and that this decline drives poor health. So we might need to supplement our taurine levels. That got a lot of attention, but the new study seemed to say something different as you age.
Taurine does not decline in our world. This kind of perceived conflict is a potential disaster. I mean, I exaggerate a little bit, but it's not good. We're the people who are supposed to have answers. But something like this feeds right into the perceived the whiplash the public says they can have about science. I should have done my thumb workout before I got here.
Can you do next slide for me, Bob. All right, so something like that feeds right into the whiplash that the public says they experience about science, right? One week a study about coffee says it's good for me. The next week it says it's bad for me. We've all heard that. And part of why that happens aligned with the theme of this conference isn't just the science itself, but it's the incentives behind, in part, how research gets communicated, how it gets picked up by the press.
Needless to say, for publishers focused on building trust, the stakes are high in a moment like this because if not done well, our communications could leave reporters pretty confused or at least make it easy for them to write clickbait headlines. Then we might see headlines like this next slide. All right.
And that's that one. Takes a couple clicks. Rock on. Thanks, Bob. Perfect So these are headlines we could see. Right if things go wrong and they could go viral and they could go viral on different platforms. And all of this could be very bad for our authors.
And it could deepen the public's skepticism about science journalism and about science. It could happen. So what we wanted to do was ensure this work was not only represented accurately on its own, but conveyed in a way that didn't undermine trust more broadly. Another goal we had to communicate that one study is a snapshot, and the full story really comes from putting all the different pictures together in the bigger album.
So as our team thought about all this, we started analyzing the new paper. It was slated for June. There were critical differences in how it was done compared to the older one. One was definitely not like the other. Try it. Yes nailed it. All right.
But it was still a little complicated. So we got an idea. If we could talk about the two studies together. People learning about the new paper could better grasp how the paper's having two different signals was actually not quite what it seemed. And the best way to do this, we thought, was a little unconventional.
We could invite authors from both studies to talk to reporters together. Was that a crazy idea. Maybe could it could it go wrong in front of reporters, leading to even worse headlines than I'd shown before. Possibly could it make the authors feel challenged or like they weren't getting a fair shake. That was definitely a concern. And for our part, we'd never brought two author groups to the same briefing like this when the focus was to elucidate a difference.
So clearly we had a couple hurdles. First, we always work closely with our editors in promoting papers in briefings here. The same editor had handled both papers, and our question was, how were we going to convince him that this kind of exposure was good for his authors. It worried us a bit. However, we met with him.
We talked about what was at stake and what we wanted to do, and the preparation that we would put into this. And to our delight, he said yes to our idea, then to our second hurdle. Get buy in from the authors. The new paper authors would have to be willing to share the spotlight, and the older paper authors would have to be willing to step into the spotlight, specifically because their work was being challenged a little bit.
Which doesn't sound fun. Doesn't sound like a great incentive, but we went to the new paper authors first after we explained what we wanted to do. They were in. Then we went to the old paper authors. We thought this would be the hardest sell, but we'd worked with them in 2023 and they said, we remember your way of working and we trust you and we'll do this.
That was great to hear. So to our delight, they said yes to and we were off. We got to work. We held prep sessions and responded to inquiries from both groups and their press offices. We really talked through what was different about their work, but ultimately what they were trying to do for the public's benefit. And then a few weeks later, it was time we held an embargoed briefing.
One really important thing it did. It let the authors of the new study talk about how the 2023 study inspired their work in the first place, and that was a really cool story. Reporters took a lot out of that. Both authors also got to talk about reasons. The two study's results showed seemingly different signals, and they talked about what was yet to be understood about the field more generally, and that that helped show how their work to answer the question was, was complementary.
As press watched all this, they got the rare opportunity to witness researchers having an open discussion on seemingly contradictory findings, which weren't actually so contradictory after all, and being able to convey that made the authors really happy. One is quoted here. Now, it is true that the new paper authors tend to think the levels of taurine vary more by factors unique to each person based on aging.
But ultimately, both groups say we have to keep investing in this space because just how it plays out, what taurine actually does in the aging of humans and how it impacts our health, is something we do want an answer to. It could have big implications. Both groups agreed. And randomized controlled triage will help understand this. And one is happening right now.
For me, what was really clear in watching these authors explain all this was how much they respected each other's work. Reporters got to see that they asked good questions. One reporter commended the authors for demonstrating admirable restraint in their careful critique of each other's work. They sent that note to me privately, and then after the briefing, we waited. What would the what would the headline say.
Would we see those headlines I'd shown before or worse. We had two days to wait for the embargo to lift after the briefing. As news reports emerged, though, we were relieved and happy. It was pretty clear that most reporters had gotten the message that the two groups had done work that was important to keep doing, and truly complementary. NBC News was among the attendees. The journals there sought out this quote for her story.
It's just what we hoped for. The two papers are a good example of how science can work, said doctor Peter abadir. Although the findings are very different, that doesn't mean one is right and one is wrong. We saw similar sentiments and stories from other outlets. They were trying to explain the scientific process, that it's messy sometimes, but that doesn't mean it's messed up.
We were happy for our authors and for science with the little s. This was a case where we truly could have seen some bad outcomes, but we put two groups of scientists who are willing to have their work dissected in the same room. And because they were willing to do that, the public can better understand the process of science and who's behind it and that it's working for their good.
For us, replacing public doubt with public confidence is one of the most impactful things we can do as a publisher. And I want to emphasize, because I've been talking a lot about taurine and aging, these studies could have been about anything and any topic. It was the possibility for people to see them as diametrically opposed, contributing to that whiplash factor that had us worried. The reality is, is everybody knows here we're in a time when the value of science is being questioned and journals value is questioned as part of that.
To show our value, we think we have to connect with the audience beyond the Academy, beyond our usual remit. And we have to consider doing this in ways that meet people's good faith interests and concerns. So we at the press team at science are experimenting. Here's something that seemed to work, and we wanted to share it. So maybe you could improve upon it and we could learn from you. So my name is Megan Thee Stallion.
I'm the communications director for the science family of journals. So happy to be with you today, folks in the room and online. Thanks to SSP for having me. I was surprised, I'll be honest, when I got an invite to be a keynote speaker, because I think of myself as a student of my colleagues through what you all share in blog posts and LinkedIn. Your new podcast, Jessica, which I listened to this morning.
Really like it. The informed frontier I learned so much from all of you. I'm going to message you about that later. But Yeah, some of you have probably received messages from me on LinkedIn asking to talk about different things you post. And Thanks for responding. It's led to some great conversations and a lot of learning, but I think the folks at SSP have me here because as we experiment in different ways at the science family of journals, incentivized by our mission to communicate science accurately, to respond to the times we're finding ourselves in, and to show the unique value of publishers, some of what we're doing may be worth trying elsewhere.
I'm hoping you'll be able to use some of these ideas I'm sharing in that. Equipping you this way could help accelerate buy in with your colleagues on related projects, as we all know how hard it can be to get buy in. I'm sharing all this at a time when, again, I don't have to tell everybody here the value and validity of journals and peer review and evidence is being loudly questioned.
Its being questioned by policymakers, the reporters and the public today, what that means to each of our jobs is that we're having to shift some of our time, often significant time, to playing defense. This challenges and even compromises the work that we're doing on a daily basis. I thought a lot about this in the last year, since COVID and before this talk today, and I think and others of you may feel this way, too, that it presents a moment for us to rise.
And it galvanizes us to look at the questions about science a little more closely. Which of them have merit. Which of them should we try to answer in ways that publishers are well positioned to do. As a backdrop to all of this, I'll zero in on one element of research and publishing that gets discussed a lot these days, including at the highest levels of government open access.
There have been calls for open access for decades today, we're at a moment where more research than ever before is openly available, and that is great for democratizing knowledge. NIH, for its part, accelerated the implementation of the Nelson memo this year, saying everything it funds now has to be open by July instead of December 2025 as planned. And part of their rationale, notably, as you all may remember, was to improve public trust.
But I've been thinking a lot about that right now. Arguably, we've got more open research than ever before, but does anyone think we're at an unprecedented level of trust in science. Probably not. So what does that mean. In my view, it means that open isn't enough. I personally think it means that communication alongside the publicly available work we're publishing, communications that publishers are well positioned to do are critical.
Absolutely critical today, you'll get a better understanding of what people at science, including at our press team, are doing to respond to this challenge. I'll share a few specifics. Hopefully, you'll see we're respecting the process above and beyond what you may know. And if anybody asks, you'll have the behind the scenes. And with luck, if I do this right, folks will leave feeling empowered.
OK, now, after sharing that hopeful sentiment, I'll take our spirits right down again. As we've said here today, publishers are under scrutiny. How many of you have seen an article in the last month about journals not being on top of their game or retraction fraud. Something like that. I'm guessing most people today, headlines like this one are increasingly discussed.
I'm seeing them in outlets that really haven't even contacted us that much about research papers over the years, which is an interesting signal. I watched a hearing the other week. I've been watching hearings for fun. Where the chairman he opened by mentioning the number of retractions that a major publisher. It struck me the word retraction is no longer a scientific publishing jargon or scientific publishing language.
It's public language. And there's another dimension to how visible all this is. On our team. At the science press package, we talked to reporters from different outlets each month. We asked them how we can help support their science storytelling goals. And in recent years, one thing has surfaced surfaced as a topic of interest for outlets big and small, stateside and international.
They're all interested in research fraud. They're paying attention to problems in the literature, real or alleged. They're seeing them raised on pubpeer, on social media, and by sleuths. They want to know why research conduct is happening more often. Journalists want to know this, in part because they're an extension of the public. And now the public is interested.
And perhaps it's not surprising, given that major government leaders are framing bad papers as a bad return for taxpayer dollars. At science last year, we were thinking about all this. We felt like we had to act. We had a foundation to build on under our editor in chief and other leaders. We'd been trying to advance the conversation about research integrity in key ways.
We published an editorial urging authors to make swift, transparent correction where that's needed a priority, and we'd published one on rethinking the retraction process, decoupling the findings about a paper's validity from the slower process of determining if misconduct occurred. The goal is to get the word out about the validity of verdict sooner.
And this had been going well. My boss, editor in chief of science, Holden Thorp, had gotten an award for science's broader work in the last two years. Two awards, actually one from stat and one from the National Library of Medicine. But last year, we began talking about how all of this was pretty focused on the author's work with the journal and not the author's work with reporters.
That meant, in a way, we were leaving the public out, too. So a group of editors sat down and I sat with them, and we said, we need to position our authors to be ready for media queries about problems in their papers. These moments are significant. They're not just a chance to clear the air on one paper. They're opportunities for the public to get a window into how work goes wrong, which can create more of an opportunity for them to appreciate when it goes right.
There are opportunities for the researcher to be humanized and for the complexity of their story, which may involve misconduct or may not be told. When this happens, well, when new stories are done well, readers could say, I get it. I see how that could happen. I'm glad there's some accountability there. We've seen these stories. A number of them paint authors who retract or update their papers for various reasons in a positive light.
I'll share a few headlines here. I have a meeting with one of the authors who proactively retracted their climate paper, the third headline there next week. His team's retraction in 2024 was well received, including in media and on social media. And he told us that he openly talked to press. You can see one of his quotes there. Although we are disappointed, we were happy to be able to correct the scientific record.
I want to talk to him about the good that came from being proactive, the way it helped other team members grow, or helped his team build trust among the research community or others. And he also wants to talk about how the scientific enterprise might continue to better destigmatize retractions. I'm looking forward to the conversation. But in terms of authors being willing to be proactive and talk to media, this climate paper retraction was a bit of a special case.
The reality is, reporters tell us that most times most cases authors don't talk to them. In these situations, their instinct is to shut down and we get it. Their reputation is at risk if they talk to press their lab Mates, reputation, their institutions, their funding, they may not even know the source of the error they're asked about yet. Or maybe they did cut a corner in a very hectic time.
Not that it was right, but maybe it happened and they don't know how anything they say will be used in this environment. All of that is valid, but none of this will be understood by the public in the most charitable way. If authors don't talk to the reporters telling these stories, and it could actually be worse if they don't tell their side. It's kind of like watching only the highlight reel of a game without ever seeing the full match.
From the highlights alone, you might think a mistake a player made was careless or even malicious, but if you see the full game and hear the athlete's perspective in the press conference later, you'd understand the pressures, the context, the split second decisions, every last thing that shaped that moment. And those things that shape the moment are often relatable things or humanizing things.
They can invite some grace, at least. So it's science. Again, with all this in mind, we thought we had to rethink this author reporter engagement moment. Even in these difficult times, just because others are going low doesn't mean we have to go low too. We wanted to help authors leverage all they had at their disposal to signal their commitment to transparency.
So first we put together our own list of tips based on talking amongst our editors and the reporters Sciences news team. I want to give a shout out here to investigative reporter Charlie Piller. If you've not read his work, he's done some of the best investigative reporting into Alzheimer's research, some of which may not pan out, unfortunately.
But he tries to talk to authors whose work has been found in question. And he told me a few things as we were working to build these tips. It's always better to talk to reporters, he said, because even if it looks as if there's misconduct, there can be extenuating circumstances that can help the reporter tell the biggest, fairest story. He highlighted several examples where people did talk to him and the outcome was more beneficial to them.
In one case, it opened up a really interesting set of issues related to mental health of people whose work is found to be fraudulent. And then he covered that issue. Charlie tries to humanize people, even if they won't humanize themselves. That's part of what it means to be fair minded, he said. And in general, the level of terror about bad press actually makes the situation worse, in his view.
Instead, he urges authors to say the situation was difficult. I acknowledge missteps. We're going to put due diligence standards in place going forward. Of course, that's all easier said than done, but it's no less true. So after we talk to our own team editors reporters like Charlie about building these tips for authors, we talk to other people in authors orbits who would have good advice for us to University press officers, research integrity officers, journal press officers, University librarians.
And we couldn't forget Ivan Zarinsky, whose reporters at Retraction Watch never miss a retraction. We talked to him, too, but it was exciting as we did this because we were getting feedback along the way that nothing else like this was out there, and we really appreciated everybody's help and time. We had what we believed to be a useful, thoughtful list of tips. To me, a lot of them made intuitive sense, including showing humility and responding to media on substance instead of attacking the attackers.
But I was surprised by some of them. I think one of the tips that surprised me most was this suggestion by one of our own editors that we should share the data with the reporter, but I talked to several reporters and they said, yes, this is important. Even if we cannot interpret it, we probably can't. Knowing we can see the data is a signal of the author's commitment to transparency, and we can get an expert to try to review it.
In February, then we published the official tips in an editorial called Breaking the silence. We got mostly positive feedback. We particularly appreciated the feedback that emphasize that encouraging authors to engage in this way could help their institutions show their own commitments to integrity, and that would help them at a time when they were and are still today, unfortunately, under attack today, we really consider these tips a living document.
That means we continue to talk to authors and reporters about how they find them. Are they realistic. Are they helpful. What would you add. Last month, I talked to Theo Baker, the Stanford University student reporter who broke the story on problems with papers from the lab of former Stanford president Marc tessier-lavigne. Ultimately, Theo's reporting led to the president resigning, retracted, retracted two of his papers as part of that, working closely with Doctor tessier-lavigne.
We also talked to Theo around that time. It was just after that we published our tips, and Theo had praised them when we first published them back in February. He shared them with the reporter community. I talked to him last month again. Now, seven months later here to get a refresher on his view of the tips. And he emphasized reporters really want relationships in these scenarios where they're reaching out to authors.
Authors talking to them, even on background, will go very far, because talking to reporters, even on background, could really impact the framing of a story. Reporters are incentivized to inform their readers, but they don't forget that researchers are people, too, he said. When I talked to an author in Canada the other day about the tips, someone who had retracted his work at science, even though the University hadn't been done with their misconduct investigation, he said encouraging authors to engage with media and giving them cover to do that is one of the most important things publishers can be doing.
He asked if journals could please do more to help their institutions understand. They want to talk to these, to want to talk, to press. So often in these tough moments, they really do. I talked to another researcher in the UK recently, an early career researcher who had just written about the need for kindness in the early career researcher community. She said that news stories about retractions could be doing more to help the research enterprise.
Instead of profiling individual bad apples, or at least instead of making that the focus, she said, they could be teaching the world about the pressures scientists face. Stories could be doing that. And surely some do, like those of Charlie Piller and others. But she asked if we, as journals, could encourage journals to tell the bigger picture story more often as part.
She suggested that we actively encourage journals to really look at the credit taxonomy for a given paper because, she said, authorship matters what is truly in a given author's purview what isn't. What should the whole author group be aware of and responsible for. And what was the culture in that lab in the first place that laid out the guidance on research integrity.
These are some of the angles I hope to talk to journals about, with the goal of shifting the focus to stories that paint the fullest picture of science and process. Those are stories we can potentially learn more from. So as we continue to talk to authors and reporters about these tips we've published, we're folding in feedback like this. And we'd love to hear from you all to make them better. It's important to note we know these research integrity cases are incredibly difficult for institutions.
There's an incentive structure back to the conference theme that makes silence easier than transparency. There's a tremendous amount of at stake University reputation, legal components, the possibility that one story leads to many more press coming to call funding. But what's also at stake in 2025 is public trust in science and in institutions. These moments could actually be opportunities for institutions that are under massive scrutiny.
And by helping them help their authors, we as publishers can play a small role in equipping them to clearly demonstrate their commitment to a transparent scientific process. This could look like what we saw in the example with the author from Canada. We help the researcher respond to media regarding the validity of any findings, even as the institutional investigation into misconduct is not done, but the institution is supportive of that cadence.
It lets us clear the air sooner on the validity of findings, and that serves a lot of people. Everyone who supports a free exchange of ideas has an opportunity in this moment, and we really think the only way to move forward is to do this together. Yes, the information system in which we are today has changed. It's scary. We're not ignoring the possibility of weaponization for anything we say.
But if we get started living out our values. Now, we will one day be at a level where we can do that at full tilt, the way we really want to. And one of the elements that sets publishers apart is that we're willing to go into the public arena for papers that we've validated. We're willing to be visible not only for the credit of publishing helpful research, but also when things could go South.
Doing this could put a target on our backs, but it also gives us a platform to talk about what we have done and what we will do. And it gives us credit with those who look for the ones who take a stand. We know what can happen if we stick our neck out. We've been in some uncomfortable places, as this photo shows, but we think the cost is worth it if we do it right. I was thinking the other day the theme of international open Axis Wake later this month is who owns the knowledge.
Maybe some of you will be participating in that. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone will do for me when I think about that question. Who owns the knowledge. I think that as part of that, we have to consider who is willing to go to bat for research in a public setting when the stakes are high. And as publishers, when we do this, it really sets us apart. Looking at the audience today, you all know your authors, the disciplines you handle, the data, the figures, the complexities of their funding, landscapes.
Every case looks different, that's for certain. And we don't have endless time. But by being committed to these cases where we can and when we can, we can help. We can catalyze the communications that help replace public doubt in scientists and in institutions with public confidence, one interaction at a time. I like to think that maybe someday, instead of all this emphasis on Publish or perish, the public will be saying we can see how scientists publish with purpose and how they stand behind their work too.
After all, trust isn't built by never failing. It's built by failing responsibly and transparently. The final way I want to talk about engaging, to show the value of journals, and discuss how to discuss how journals can help build trust in research and publishing moves us to Capitol Hill. The world of policymakers. How many people here think policy makers understand what journals do besides peer review.
OK, there are no hands up. Just making that clear. That's what I expected. How many of you have watched or read anything from a congressional hearing on science in the last couple of years. Anybody? OK.
More hands, so not everyone's favorite reading material or viewing material, I'm sure. But the reality is more policymakers are paying attention to journals right now than ever before. Personally, I've never experienced anything like the last few years in terms of policymaker interest in our journals. Here's a picture of my boss. After speaking before the Senate subcommittee on COVID origins last year, I showed a slide of that hearing just previously too.
But this picture on the screen is after the hearing was done, you can see Holden Thorp, our editor in chief, shaking the chairman's hand. He just spent a while explaining the process by which we published certain research and commentary to, and the chairman said it changed his understanding of how journals work and what they publish. That was really gratifying to hear. Strangely, like I alluded to before, I've kind of come to appreciate hearings.
I've actually started to check out the hearing schedule every Monday, looking to see where science could be a feature. I've heard it said that one, one of the most overlooked roles in the world of science and policy, is the role for people who can provide options to decision makers. Hearings are a place for that, in part. At this hearing last year, we got to explain how journals support that effort.
Journal's role is vital. Hearings are also part of the way that Congress establishes a record on topics that many people care about. If you prepare a written testimony, and I certainly didn't understand this until last year, you're preparing it not just for the people in the room, but for an audience that's much wider. Like I said, I didn't realize that until I saw how much Holden's testimony from 2024 was referenced and quoted still to this day.
And I'm glad, because working with a team to prepare, it took a long time. In the last few weeks I've been going with my colleagues to visit hill staffers for something much less nerve wracking than a hearing. And maybe some of you are doing this too. But I've been there to talk about our approach to public access. I don't know how many times I've heard in those meetings.
I think in almost every meeting, actually. What else do you do besides peer review. And for me, that was really clarifying, because if policymakers don't know what publishers actually do, then we can't assume the public or the press knows either. That's why telling our story isn't really optional right now. I think it's essential. We're proud to be telling it when we go.
We explained some of our daily work things we do like performing validation checks for image integrity. Author coy. References and data openness. Stewarding communication that responds to public concern. Updating the scholarly record should that be needed. Sometimes even years later, and standing behind research we validated in public forums. As part of one of the hill meetings, I explained that that tar paper briefing we'd facilitated, they didn't even know publishers did things like that.
Their eyes really lit up, and it seemed to strike them as an antidote to some of the difficult debates we're having now. After we explain all this, what we do to the policymakers that we've visited so far, they've really been surprised and appreciative. We want more people on the hill to know about the processes behind our work to vet, curate and publish science. We also want them to be more aware of what we're publishing week to week, the actual studies in January 2024.
Relatedly, our team did something else focused on getting research to policymakers. And I should note that since policymakers aren't our team's typical audience, we really had to take some time to study this landscape with our colleagues in the ala's office of government relations. They gave us a lot of help. But eventually, in January last year, we launched a brand new offering to reporters who reach policymakers.
It's called policy Pac. We launched it because we'd read a top secret report about policymakers media habits, and it said that if there was one form of media that both Democrats and Republicans were consuming, more of it was newsletters. But at the science press team, we were not reaching the reporters that those newsletters historically.
In the months after we launched policy Pac, though, to try to fill this gap, we saw a difference. More coverage of our research papers across our journals showed up in top policy outlets like e! And e! News, the hill, Bloomberg, Semafor. There's more work to do, but there's been some good progress here, and we've got a write up on the science editor's blog that explains what we did with policy pack.
It's very scalable. We'd love to hear if folks try something like this and improve upon it. In the last nearly two years, we've seen such good success with policy pack, leading to news stories that now we're doing something new. Just in the last two weeks, we're making a version of it available to policy makers directly. Last month, we connected with five professional staff members on various committees.
We're excited to work with the committees because we know they're typically more bipartisan. They are now getting the post embargo version of the policy pack. That includes 250 word summaries of the research. Our team writes those and author contact info readily displayed. We're continuing to research these hill members to looking into the issues they're tackling in their home districts.
We want to be positioned to connect them with science family authors who could inform those issues. Everyone in the room knows the value of connecting to policymakers making sure they have evidence at hand. Not that they always use it, but I think it's our job to try to get it to them. And we've heard from our authors, as you probably have, too, that connecting them with policymakers one time can lead to relationships that last for years.
In June, we arranged for one of our authors to participate in a briefing where she connected with policymakers from over 40 states in the course of an hour. The event was one we collaborated on with our colleagues at the ala's epi center, which is focused on getting research into the hands of local and state policymakers like the National League of Cities and the National Governors Association.
Those kinds of groups. The science author we featured in the briefing was so thrilled with the reach she got in one hour. She connected to policymakers in inland and coastal states, a wide variety. In this case, she was talking about planning to mitigate damage from climate change related flooding. She gave very, very actionable, evidence based advice. She was one of three speakers, and the policy maker said the webinar was really helpful to them because it gave them direct access to clear communicators who shared expertise in a relatable way.
It made them feel equipped to begin to inform some tough calls they had to make in their home states, and to know who they could call if they needed more help. They said, can you please do more webinars like this. Giving us direct scientist connections. It was encouraging to see their appetite, and I think publishers have great opportunities here. Connecting authors and policy makers on key issues where policymakers really need the help.
It makes otherwise invisible scientists visible in these spaces. As publishers, we know the truth about what we publish can be told in various ways in news stories and soundbites on T.V. And that may be especially so on the hill. The CEO of ars, Sudha parekh has been on the Hill a lot himself lately, testifying about the importance of science funding.
With some success, he recently said sometimes success is quiet and that really struck me. I'd add to that that sometimes success takes a long time or requires strange, unconventional approaches, or invites a really uncomfortable challenge. But we have confidence that if we continue to give policymakers high quality, peer reviewed evidence, today's unused study could be tomorrow's cornerstone.
Government officials have an incentive to act quickly and decisively as policy windows open unexpectedly. Our job is to make sure the evidence is already on their shelf. OK, I will wrap up now. Thank you for your patience so far. This slide already slipped out, but I wanted to ask how many of you saw this headline in the Wall Street Journal last month.
OK how many of you had strong, strong reactions. Hahaha Yeah. For me, it really inspired some feelings too. I thought about calling the author, especially as I saw this person continuing to post similarly on social media. But who wants to call up someone who's diametrically opposed to your view. But in the end, for me, though, fear is kind of a good indicator of something that might be worth doing.
So I set up a meeting with this person and we had a great conversation. All credit to them. And they acknowledged something I thought worth sharing with the audience here today. As much as journals aren't the approach. Aren't the approach they endorse. They are focused on preprints, preprints, preprints. When it comes to public trust building, which is a concern we share.
Journals are best positioned to do some of the most impactful work, including through efforts I've outlined today and that you all are doing. And these are efforts we can all improve upon or do in ways that make sense for our publications and our authors. As I told a reporter at Inside Higher Ed last week, and as I've said earlier in this talk, if we want to help improve public trust in science, ensuring research is open isn't enough on its own.
There are other factors to consider the way authors share their data and what form it's in, the way authors of any study commit to engaging, or how publishers set them up to do that, and with whom. Authors ability to articulate what they know and what they don't. This is all in our realm as publishers, to get in the best possible shape for public consumption. And to be creative with highlighting.
We've actually found this process can be fun, including for the authors. We held a briefing about a year ago. The paper was about a newly characterized byproduct created when our drinking water is treated. It could be a problem, this byproduct, or it might not be. They don't know yet. And we worked with the authors to make communicating the uncertainties in their study a feature of their communications.
Doing this led to very clear reporting on a topic that could have otherwise caused a lot of confusion and worry, and the authors really enjoyed being able to create that good outcome by focusing on what they didn't know yet. We held a briefing last week where we encouraged our authors to focus on talking about data access. It was an unusual case.
The editors at science and the authors had worked carefully to set up an arrangement that balanced openness with safety. The speakers made the related discussion really interesting for the briefing. They helped reporters understand the time required to carefully consider what data was made available and the emphasis on safety, and we saw these themes reflected in news coverage for the public.
As journals, we are more committed than ever to showing our processes and our value. We're talking to the people in the messy places where the research is seemingly in opposition, or where there are questions about misconduct, or where policy needs more evidence to be sound. We move forward one step at a time, sometimes one section of a study at a time, like the data access part. We prepare clear offerings, and we're experienced enough to know that they're going to be differences in questions.
I'm happy to report that I'm seeing some of our special efforts being respected. And when they're not, we'll just speak up more. You all know this too. As I look out today, I know how dedicated everybody here is. And I truly believe that if we lean into this together, choosing transparency, connection and courage, then step by step, we won't just defend. Trust in science will grow it.
One effort at a time will be replacing public doubt with public confidence because let's face it, if we don't, tik tok will. So Thanks, everybody, for your attention and I'd love to hear your questions or comments to extend the conversation. Thank you.
Terrific science colleagues in the back I can call on. Oh go ahead Bill. Bill kasdorf kasdorf and associates. Well, first of all, Thanks for advancing science. Thank you. This this is really good. I just wanted to make a comment that I've in my career, my long career mostly worked with publishers, but more recently I've had more experience working with research organizations.
And it's interesting that the first time I had a client like that, I. One of my initial meetings with them was to sit down with their CEO executive director. I can't remember which her title was, but I said so. I presume that your main primary audience is other researchers, because that's mostly what researchers are wanting their colleagues to know. And she said, no, our main audience is policymakers and secondary audience is public.
Third down is other researchers. So that's kind of a little corner of publishing that people often just don't think about. That I think is really relevant to this conversation because that's what they're about. Thanks for sharing that. What topic, what topic did that were those researchers focused on. Do you remember.
I don't tend to give information about my clients directly. And there's a variety now I've worked with several in different areas, some in science, some in education et cetera but a different kind of organization whose focus is purely on policy makers. Interesting Thanks for sharing that. Yeah I've got a. Hi Jonathan Schultz from American Heart Association. A lot of what you've been talking about is kind of on the backdrop.
Some of this is there are fewer and fewer, you know, science reporters and journals, and even organizations that regularly report on science. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that. Has your approach changed how you reach out to reporters and all that kind of stuff. Because, you know, if there's fewer outlets, it's more likely that one potentially negative voice will kind of be louder in the crowd in a sense, you know?
Yeah it's a really good point. Our team actually has a retreat later this month focused kind of all about that. So changes in the media landscape and thinking about who else we should be reaching now because they're doing a lot of science communication. One good thing, I think I would say, is that some of the best and veteran science journals are still there.
And maybe their work is getting syndicated a little bit more. So they're having a good reach. But it's a crazy, crowded, noisy, problematic landscape. And we've been thinking a lot about folks who don't get their science news from traditional media, and they get it from other sources. So we're trying to begin to engage with some content creators. But it's a slow process.
We're first holding meetings with them. And understanding, like one of my slides showed what their science storytelling goals are. And we're fully aware that they would operate differently than journals do if we gave science, if we helped them get science, they may cover it, but they're going to cover it in their own authentic way. That's why their audiences are drawn to them. So I think I would have more to say next year about who were successfully engaging with.
But it's definitely something we're exploring here. Oh, Hi. Heather stains from Delta bank. Great great presentation. I was excited to hear about policy Pac and Delta think we do a lot of interviews like in Bill's position, a lot of them with researchers and more and more I hear researchers variety of ages, variety of different fields say, wouldn't it be great if I could just get something that would come to me with like a bunch of links to things and we're like, Yeah, it's called a newsletter.
And a lot of folks feel like newsletters are literally, you know, old news. I have always been a newsletter person myself, but were you surprised that to kind of land on that newsletter format, and how would you tell people who maybe feel like newsletters are just, you know, so yesterday, Yeah, we were surprised. We thought we thought we might see one of the social media platforms is the most consumed kind of media form, but we didn't.
It's newsletters. But I relate to this because I'm struggling with all the input myself. But there are certain newsletters I get every day that I definitely check. And as I ask more and more people across the team in the organization, I think they say that too. So I think that's what I would say.
Real on the ground feedback. Thanks Thanks. Wonderful way to kick things off. You are such a role model in fighting insanity with smarts. So way to go. We're going to have a short break to get ready for our next session, which is the kickoff of our round tables.
You'll see we have 45 minutes this morning with round tables, and then 45 minutes to close the day, in part because we're hoping that conversation will continue throughout the day. So short break. Welcome back. In about 15 minutes. Thanks OK.
Segment:0 .
Everybody ready to get started. Welcome. Thank you all for being here for attending SPS 2025 new direction seminar. Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome. You're either in person here in beautiful DC or online with us, and we're so pleased that you could be with us today. I'm lettie Conrad, new directions working group co-lead, along with the amazing Jenny Herbert of aip publishing, who is attending virtually.
And I think this might be a new thing, one co-lead in each spot, bringing a sense of place to both the online and the in-person. I am a product R&D consultant, spending much of my time lately as product experience architect at leblancs with Tim Lloyd. I have had the pleasure of working with the education committee now for the last three years on the new directions programs, and I'm going to now hand the mic to my friend and colleague, Jenny Herbert.
Hello, welcome to New directions 2025. We are so excited to have you. I'm Jenny Herbert, as lettie said, and I lead product operations and researcher experience operations and programming at the American Institute of Physics publishing for medical reasons. I am coming to you today from Pittsburgh. So a big welcome to everyone who is actually in the room at the Au.
I can see, like the camera of all of you there, and I'm so jealous. I miss seeing you. And to everyone who's joining us from around the world and their offices and homes, we're so excited that you joined us. Also, we are so grateful that you carved out time to join the conversation with us today. Whether you are in DC or whether you're at your own house, I wanted to give a huge Thank you to the volunteer working group for all of their hard work developing the program and the connection opportunities that we introduced this year.
Beyond the program, the folks that are on the slide have full time day jobs and gave so much time and energy into making what I think is truly going to be an excellent seminar. So I'm not going to read all of the names. But if you see anyone on this slide in the room or around online, you know, give them a big Pat on the back, give them a cookie if you have one. They've done a lot of work and they're really awesome.
We're so glad that they've done all of this. As we look ahead to next year's seminar, I also want to invite anyone listening to reach out if you're interested in joining the planning committee. The planning committee is really fun. We're a nice group. We primarily plan from January to October, so it's not year round and it's actually really active.
So you get to actually do things like you get to make the session. So it's Audit Committee that you get on where you're not really sure what to do. We can totally put you to work. So if you're interested, get in touch. We would love to have you. Another critical group to Thank are our event sponsors. SSP is a really wonderful community.
And events like this one provide so much value. Our sponsors are really what enable SSP to do this kind of thing. So a big Thank you to Cadmore media, data conversion laboratory, Digital Science and Silverchair. Your support truly means so much to us. We are so grateful that you keep engaging with the community. Thank you for sponsoring us. Awesome! yes.
Thank you. Before we get started, we have a couple of housekeeping notes. So for those of you here irl in the room, the Wi-Fi password is capital W. Welcome to 0% And that should be on the slide as well as flyers and handouts both that you received when you checked in, as well as on the table for everyone. The meeting hashtag is SSP and 2025. So please, I'm not going to use the T word.
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Once they're posted, they will be available until the end of December of this year. And if you again, you need any sort of assistance, please post a message or email us at SSP. Org Jenny, over to you for a couple more comments. All right. So we actually have an app. SSP has an app. So for additional networking and information, please download the engage app to network with your fellow New directions attendees.
This is SSPS year round app so you can access the program, additional information and message other attendees. So if there's someone that you saw speak or that you see across the room who you'd really like to talk to, you can message them in our app. A quick note on SSPS code of conduct in today's meeting. We are committed to diversity and equity, and providing an inclusive meeting environment that fosters open dialogue and the free expression of ideas free of harassment, discrimination, and hostile conduct.
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All right. Next, we have SSP antitrust policy. I think there might be a slide for this. Perfect SSP is committed to complying with competition and antitrust laws. Please avoid discussing anything regarding pricing, market allocation, boycotts or other topics that could be interpreted as anti-competitive.
Don't get sued. And with that, off to you, lettie. Thank you. Awesome OK. SSP merchandise if you didn't notice the swag, please support SSP by purchasing SSP or Scholarly Kitchen gear. You can purchase at the registration desk or of course, buy online. Now this evening, October 7, we have two events in for in-person attendees this evening.
So at 6:00 PM, directly after the seminar finishes up, please join us for an informal social hour at busboys and poets. And then at 7:00 715, a handful of us are hosting dinner dialogues at various restaurants nearby. So if you'd like to see where we're eating and if you'd like to see what the dinner options are, please sign up by about noon today. Now, if you didn't receive an email, I heard a couple of folks who couldn't find that.
No before you go email on your registration pamphlet and on the table, you'll see a QR code for the dinner dialogues. And if you didn't, for whatever reason, grab that sheet as you came in. It's just at the reg desk. OK, so for tomorrow's events, October 8, if you have time, join us.
We are directly after the seminar closes around 12:30. We'll have a few informal offsite lunches. We've also arranged for a tour of the American Geophysical Union building that we're in right now to check out all the amazing energy saving features. So if you're interested in that, meet us in the lobby at 1:30 PM tomorrow. And Jenny, back to you for one last comment to kick us off. Now, if you are listening to these events that are happening in person and you're virtual and you're thinking, are you kidding me.
They told me there would be cool virtual events and now I don't get to go to an Au tour. Don't worry, we have something for you. So virtual attendees and in-person attendees are welcome to join the virtual break room. When you're looking at the like the lobby area of the web page or app, there's something that is called. Let's see here. I think it's called October 7 virtual break room.
Tomorrow it will be called October 8 virtual break room. If you join that, it's a Zoom room where there will be moderators there at specific intervals, which was in the know before you go email. And I think it's also written in that virtual break room. The session. It says when we'll have moderators there, but you can if you want to go in and see if someone else is there, you can join it.
Whenever we have a miro board where people this morning were sharing pictures of their pets and information about where they're located and what they're interested in. If you're interested in seeing pet photos from other people in the industry, feel free to check out the link to the Miro board that was shared in the lobby chat. There's some great photos in there. Feel free to add your own pet photos. But go ahead and join us.
You can scan the QR code or access the link in the description of the virtual break room session in Zoom events. And with that, now we'll actually let you hear the program that you came here for. So let me take us away. Thank you. Jenny, without further ado, let me introduce you to our keynote speaker for today, Megan Phelan.
Megan is the communications director for the science family of journals, where she oversees efforts to boost the visibility of all forthcoming science family of journal content for reporters porters worldwide. Prior to joining r.a.s. in 2013, Magan served as a senior Writer at air worldwide, where she interacted with more than 65 PhD level scientists and engineers to communicate advances in wind engineering, seismology, climate science, seismology, narratology, seismology, climate science, and other fields.
Previously, Magan was senior Writer and editor at the Memorial sloan-kettering Cancer Center. Magan holds a bachelor's degree in biology and Spanish from Gettysburg college and a master's degree in science writing from the Johns Hopkins University. In 2008 2008, Magan received a Fulbright scholarship to work with Doctor Juan Antonio raga at the University of Valencia to help determine the cause of morbillivirus resurgence among small crustaceans.
Crustaceans you're going to have to pronounce all of these things. Magan, I am doing this. No service. Megan has also completed science reporting, internships with science as well as national Public Radio, and has freelanced for various outlets, including anesthesiology news. Megan, if before I butcher any more words, please join us for our keynote and welcome, Megan.
All right. Great sound is on. That was wonderful. Thank you. Ready? OK. OK so back in the spring, my team and I found ourselves in a tough spot.
We work every week to communicate new research to reporters, and our goal is to inspire coverage. That's accurate. And in the spring, looking across the pipeline of papers coming up, one study in particular caught our attention. Bob, the clicker doesn't like me. Cool perfect.
OK so this study that we saw in the spring, it was coming up. It wasn't published yet. It reported on the impact of taurine, an amino acid on human aging, a topic of great public interest. Perfect Yeah. But two years before we remembered very well. We had published a study that seemed on the face to say the opposite.
And this is it. This one in the screen. I think we clicked ahead. So to summarize, the older study had said the amino acid taurine declined as humans age, and that this decline drives poor health. So we might need to supplement our taurine levels. That got a lot of attention, but the new study seemed to say something different as you age.
Taurine does not decline in our world. This kind of perceived conflict is a potential disaster. I mean, I exaggerate a little bit, but it's not good. We're the people who are supposed to have answers. But something like this feeds right into the perceived the whiplash the public says they can have about science. I should have done my thumb workout before I got here.
Can you do next slide for me, Bob. All right, so something like that feeds right into the whiplash that the public says they experience about science, right? One week a study about coffee says it's good for me. The next week it says it's bad for me. We've all heard that. And part of why that happens aligned with the theme of this conference isn't just the science itself, but it's the incentives behind, in part, how research gets communicated, how it gets picked up by the press.
Needless to say, for publishers focused on building trust, the stakes are high in a moment like this because if not done well, our communications could leave reporters pretty confused or at least make it easy for them to write clickbait headlines. Then we might see headlines like this next slide. All right.
And that's that one. Takes a couple clicks. Rock on. Thanks, Bob. Perfect So these are headlines we could see. Right if things go wrong and they could go viral and they could go viral on different platforms. And all of this could be very bad for our authors.
And it could deepen the public's skepticism about science journalism and about science. It could happen. So what we wanted to do was ensure this work was not only represented accurately on its own, but conveyed in a way that didn't undermine trust more broadly. Another goal we had to communicate that one study is a snapshot, and the full story really comes from putting all the different pictures together in the bigger album.
So as our team thought about all this, we started analyzing the new paper. It was slated for June. There were critical differences in how it was done compared to the older one. One was definitely not like the other. Try it. Yes nailed it. All right.
But it was still a little complicated. So we got an idea. If we could talk about the two studies together. People learning about the new paper could better grasp how the paper's having two different signals was actually not quite what it seemed. And the best way to do this, we thought, was a little unconventional.
We could invite authors from both studies to talk to reporters together. Was that a crazy idea. Maybe could it could it go wrong in front of reporters, leading to even worse headlines than I'd shown before. Possibly could it make the authors feel challenged or like they weren't getting a fair shake. That was definitely a concern. And for our part, we'd never brought two author groups to the same briefing like this when the focus was to elucidate a difference.
So clearly we had a couple hurdles. First, we always work closely with our editors in promoting papers in briefings here. The same editor had handled both papers, and our question was, how were we going to convince him that this kind of exposure was good for his authors. It worried us a bit. However, we met with him.
We talked about what was at stake and what we wanted to do, and the preparation that we would put into this. And to our delight, he said yes to our idea, then to our second hurdle. Get buy in from the authors. The new paper authors would have to be willing to share the spotlight, and the older paper authors would have to be willing to step into the spotlight, specifically because their work was being challenged a little bit.
Which doesn't sound fun. Doesn't sound like a great incentive, but we went to the new paper authors first after we explained what we wanted to do. They were in. Then we went to the old paper authors. We thought this would be the hardest sell, but we'd worked with them in 2023 and they said, we remember your way of working and we trust you and we'll do this.
That was great to hear. So to our delight, they said yes to and we were off. We got to work. We held prep sessions and responded to inquiries from both groups and their press offices. We really talked through what was different about their work, but ultimately what they were trying to do for the public's benefit. And then a few weeks later, it was time we held an embargoed briefing.
One really important thing it did. It let the authors of the new study talk about how the 2023 study inspired their work in the first place, and that was a really cool story. Reporters took a lot out of that. Both authors also got to talk about reasons. The two study's results showed seemingly different signals, and they talked about what was yet to be understood about the field more generally, and that that helped show how their work to answer the question was, was complementary.
As press watched all this, they got the rare opportunity to witness researchers having an open discussion on seemingly contradictory findings, which weren't actually so contradictory after all, and being able to convey that made the authors really happy. One is quoted here. Now, it is true that the new paper authors tend to think the levels of taurine vary more by factors unique to each person based on aging.
But ultimately, both groups say we have to keep investing in this space because just how it plays out, what taurine actually does in the aging of humans and how it impacts our health, is something we do want an answer to. It could have big implications. Both groups agreed. And randomized controlled triage will help understand this. And one is happening right now.
For me, what was really clear in watching these authors explain all this was how much they respected each other's work. Reporters got to see that they asked good questions. One reporter commended the authors for demonstrating admirable restraint in their careful critique of each other's work. They sent that note to me privately, and then after the briefing, we waited. What would the what would the headline say.
Would we see those headlines I'd shown before or worse. We had two days to wait for the embargo to lift after the briefing. As news reports emerged, though, we were relieved and happy. It was pretty clear that most reporters had gotten the message that the two groups had done work that was important to keep doing, and truly complementary. NBC News was among the attendees. The journals there sought out this quote for her story.
It's just what we hoped for. The two papers are a good example of how science can work, said doctor Peter abadir. Although the findings are very different, that doesn't mean one is right and one is wrong. We saw similar sentiments and stories from other outlets. They were trying to explain the scientific process, that it's messy sometimes, but that doesn't mean it's messed up.
We were happy for our authors and for science with the little s. This was a case where we truly could have seen some bad outcomes, but we put two groups of scientists who are willing to have their work dissected in the same room. And because they were willing to do that, the public can better understand the process of science and who's behind it and that it's working for their good.
For us, replacing public doubt with public confidence is one of the most impactful things we can do as a publisher. And I want to emphasize, because I've been talking a lot about taurine and aging, these studies could have been about anything and any topic. It was the possibility for people to see them as diametrically opposed, contributing to that whiplash factor that had us worried. The reality is, is everybody knows here we're in a time when the value of science is being questioned and journals value is questioned as part of that.
To show our value, we think we have to connect with the audience beyond the Academy, beyond our usual remit. And we have to consider doing this in ways that meet people's good faith interests and concerns. So we at the press team at science are experimenting. Here's something that seemed to work, and we wanted to share it. So maybe you could improve upon it and we could learn from you. So my name is Megan Thee Stallion.
I'm the communications director for the science family of journals. So happy to be with you today, folks in the room and online. Thanks to SSP for having me. I was surprised, I'll be honest, when I got an invite to be a keynote speaker, because I think of myself as a student of my colleagues through what you all share in blog posts and LinkedIn. Your new podcast, Jessica, which I listened to this morning.
Really like it. The informed frontier I learned so much from all of you. I'm going to message you about that later. But Yeah, some of you have probably received messages from me on LinkedIn asking to talk about different things you post. And Thanks for responding. It's led to some great conversations and a lot of learning, but I think the folks at SSP have me here because as we experiment in different ways at the science family of journals, incentivized by our mission to communicate science accurately, to respond to the times we're finding ourselves in, and to show the unique value of publishers, some of what we're doing may be worth trying elsewhere.
I'm hoping you'll be able to use some of these ideas I'm sharing in that. Equipping you this way could help accelerate buy in with your colleagues on related projects, as we all know how hard it can be to get buy in. I'm sharing all this at a time when, again, I don't have to tell everybody here the value and validity of journals and peer review and evidence is being loudly questioned.
Its being questioned by policymakers, the reporters and the public today, what that means to each of our jobs is that we're having to shift some of our time, often significant time, to playing defense. This challenges and even compromises the work that we're doing on a daily basis. I thought a lot about this in the last year, since COVID and before this talk today, and I think and others of you may feel this way, too, that it presents a moment for us to rise.
And it galvanizes us to look at the questions about science a little more closely. Which of them have merit. Which of them should we try to answer in ways that publishers are well positioned to do. As a backdrop to all of this, I'll zero in on one element of research and publishing that gets discussed a lot these days, including at the highest levels of government open access.
There have been calls for open access for decades today, we're at a moment where more research than ever before is openly available, and that is great for democratizing knowledge. NIH, for its part, accelerated the implementation of the Nelson memo this year, saying everything it funds now has to be open by July instead of December 2025 as planned. And part of their rationale, notably, as you all may remember, was to improve public trust.
But I've been thinking a lot about that right now. Arguably, we've got more open research than ever before, but does anyone think we're at an unprecedented level of trust in science. Probably not. So what does that mean. In my view, it means that open isn't enough. I personally think it means that communication alongside the publicly available work we're publishing, communications that publishers are well positioned to do are critical.
Absolutely critical today, you'll get a better understanding of what people at science, including at our press team, are doing to respond to this challenge. I'll share a few specifics. Hopefully, you'll see we're respecting the process above and beyond what you may know. And if anybody asks, you'll have the behind the scenes. And with luck, if I do this right, folks will leave feeling empowered.
OK, now, after sharing that hopeful sentiment, I'll take our spirits right down again. As we've said here today, publishers are under scrutiny. How many of you have seen an article in the last month about journals not being on top of their game or retraction fraud. Something like that. I'm guessing most people today, headlines like this one are increasingly discussed.
I'm seeing them in outlets that really haven't even contacted us that much about research papers over the years, which is an interesting signal. I watched a hearing the other week. I've been watching hearings for fun. Where the chairman he opened by mentioning the number of retractions that a major publisher. It struck me the word retraction is no longer a scientific publishing jargon or scientific publishing language.
It's public language. And there's another dimension to how visible all this is. On our team. At the science press package, we talked to reporters from different outlets each month. We asked them how we can help support their science storytelling goals. And in recent years, one thing has surfaced surfaced as a topic of interest for outlets big and small, stateside and international.
They're all interested in research fraud. They're paying attention to problems in the literature, real or alleged. They're seeing them raised on pubpeer, on social media, and by sleuths. They want to know why research conduct is happening more often. Journalists want to know this, in part because they're an extension of the public. And now the public is interested.
And perhaps it's not surprising, given that major government leaders are framing bad papers as a bad return for taxpayer dollars. At science last year, we were thinking about all this. We felt like we had to act. We had a foundation to build on under our editor in chief and other leaders. We'd been trying to advance the conversation about research integrity in key ways.
We published an editorial urging authors to make swift, transparent correction where that's needed a priority, and we'd published one on rethinking the retraction process, decoupling the findings about a paper's validity from the slower process of determining if misconduct occurred. The goal is to get the word out about the validity of verdict sooner.
And this had been going well. My boss, editor in chief of science, Holden Thorp, had gotten an award for science's broader work in the last two years. Two awards, actually one from stat and one from the National Library of Medicine. But last year, we began talking about how all of this was pretty focused on the author's work with the journal and not the author's work with reporters.
That meant, in a way, we were leaving the public out, too. So a group of editors sat down and I sat with them, and we said, we need to position our authors to be ready for media queries about problems in their papers. These moments are significant. They're not just a chance to clear the air on one paper. They're opportunities for the public to get a window into how work goes wrong, which can create more of an opportunity for them to appreciate when it goes right.
There are opportunities for the researcher to be humanized and for the complexity of their story, which may involve misconduct or may not be told. When this happens, well, when new stories are done well, readers could say, I get it. I see how that could happen. I'm glad there's some accountability there. We've seen these stories. A number of them paint authors who retract or update their papers for various reasons in a positive light.
I'll share a few headlines here. I have a meeting with one of the authors who proactively retracted their climate paper, the third headline there next week. His team's retraction in 2024 was well received, including in media and on social media. And he told us that he openly talked to press. You can see one of his quotes there. Although we are disappointed, we were happy to be able to correct the scientific record.
I want to talk to him about the good that came from being proactive, the way it helped other team members grow, or helped his team build trust among the research community or others. And he also wants to talk about how the scientific enterprise might continue to better destigmatize retractions. I'm looking forward to the conversation. But in terms of authors being willing to be proactive and talk to media, this climate paper retraction was a bit of a special case.
The reality is, reporters tell us that most times most cases authors don't talk to them. In these situations, their instinct is to shut down and we get it. Their reputation is at risk if they talk to press their lab Mates, reputation, their institutions, their funding, they may not even know the source of the error they're asked about yet. Or maybe they did cut a corner in a very hectic time.
Not that it was right, but maybe it happened and they don't know how anything they say will be used in this environment. All of that is valid, but none of this will be understood by the public in the most charitable way. If authors don't talk to the reporters telling these stories, and it could actually be worse if they don't tell their side. It's kind of like watching only the highlight reel of a game without ever seeing the full match.
From the highlights alone, you might think a mistake a player made was careless or even malicious, but if you see the full game and hear the athlete's perspective in the press conference later, you'd understand the pressures, the context, the split second decisions, every last thing that shaped that moment. And those things that shape the moment are often relatable things or humanizing things.
They can invite some grace, at least. So it's science. Again, with all this in mind, we thought we had to rethink this author reporter engagement moment. Even in these difficult times, just because others are going low doesn't mean we have to go low too. We wanted to help authors leverage all they had at their disposal to signal their commitment to transparency.
So first we put together our own list of tips based on talking amongst our editors and the reporters Sciences news team. I want to give a shout out here to investigative reporter Charlie Piller. If you've not read his work, he's done some of the best investigative reporting into Alzheimer's research, some of which may not pan out, unfortunately.
But he tries to talk to authors whose work has been found in question. And he told me a few things as we were working to build these tips. It's always better to talk to reporters, he said, because even if it looks as if there's misconduct, there can be extenuating circumstances that can help the reporter tell the biggest, fairest story. He highlighted several examples where people did talk to him and the outcome was more beneficial to them.
In one case, it opened up a really interesting set of issues related to mental health of people whose work is found to be fraudulent. And then he covered that issue. Charlie tries to humanize people, even if they won't humanize themselves. That's part of what it means to be fair minded, he said. And in general, the level of terror about bad press actually makes the situation worse, in his view.
Instead, he urges authors to say the situation was difficult. I acknowledge missteps. We're going to put due diligence standards in place going forward. Of course, that's all easier said than done, but it's no less true. So after we talk to our own team editors reporters like Charlie about building these tips for authors, we talk to other people in authors orbits who would have good advice for us to University press officers, research integrity officers, journal press officers, University librarians.
And we couldn't forget Ivan Zarinsky, whose reporters at Retraction Watch never miss a retraction. We talked to him, too, but it was exciting as we did this because we were getting feedback along the way that nothing else like this was out there, and we really appreciated everybody's help and time. We had what we believed to be a useful, thoughtful list of tips. To me, a lot of them made intuitive sense, including showing humility and responding to media on substance instead of attacking the attackers.
But I was surprised by some of them. I think one of the tips that surprised me most was this suggestion by one of our own editors that we should share the data with the reporter, but I talked to several reporters and they said, yes, this is important. Even if we cannot interpret it, we probably can't. Knowing we can see the data is a signal of the author's commitment to transparency, and we can get an expert to try to review it.
In February, then we published the official tips in an editorial called Breaking the silence. We got mostly positive feedback. We particularly appreciated the feedback that emphasize that encouraging authors to engage in this way could help their institutions show their own commitments to integrity, and that would help them at a time when they were and are still today, unfortunately, under attack today, we really consider these tips a living document.
That means we continue to talk to authors and reporters about how they find them. Are they realistic. Are they helpful. What would you add. Last month, I talked to Theo Baker, the Stanford University student reporter who broke the story on problems with papers from the lab of former Stanford president Marc tessier-lavigne. Ultimately, Theo's reporting led to the president resigning, retracted, retracted two of his papers as part of that, working closely with Doctor tessier-lavigne.
We also talked to Theo around that time. It was just after that we published our tips, and Theo had praised them when we first published them back in February. He shared them with the reporter community. I talked to him last month again. Now, seven months later here to get a refresher on his view of the tips. And he emphasized reporters really want relationships in these scenarios where they're reaching out to authors.
Authors talking to them, even on background, will go very far, because talking to reporters, even on background, could really impact the framing of a story. Reporters are incentivized to inform their readers, but they don't forget that researchers are people, too, he said. When I talked to an author in Canada the other day about the tips, someone who had retracted his work at science, even though the University hadn't been done with their misconduct investigation, he said encouraging authors to engage with media and giving them cover to do that is one of the most important things publishers can be doing.
He asked if journals could please do more to help their institutions understand. They want to talk to these, to want to talk, to press. So often in these tough moments, they really do. I talked to another researcher in the UK recently, an early career researcher who had just written about the need for kindness in the early career researcher community. She said that news stories about retractions could be doing more to help the research enterprise.
Instead of profiling individual bad apples, or at least instead of making that the focus, she said, they could be teaching the world about the pressures scientists face. Stories could be doing that. And surely some do, like those of Charlie Piller and others. But she asked if we, as journals, could encourage journals to tell the bigger picture story more often as part.
She suggested that we actively encourage journals to really look at the credit taxonomy for a given paper because, she said, authorship matters what is truly in a given author's purview what isn't. What should the whole author group be aware of and responsible for. And what was the culture in that lab in the first place that laid out the guidance on research integrity.
These are some of the angles I hope to talk to journals about, with the goal of shifting the focus to stories that paint the fullest picture of science and process. Those are stories we can potentially learn more from. So as we continue to talk to authors and reporters about these tips we've published, we're folding in feedback like this. And we'd love to hear from you all to make them better. It's important to note we know these research integrity cases are incredibly difficult for institutions.
There's an incentive structure back to the conference theme that makes silence easier than transparency. There's a tremendous amount of at stake University reputation, legal components, the possibility that one story leads to many more press coming to call funding. But what's also at stake in 2025 is public trust in science and in institutions. These moments could actually be opportunities for institutions that are under massive scrutiny.
And by helping them help their authors, we as publishers can play a small role in equipping them to clearly demonstrate their commitment to a transparent scientific process. This could look like what we saw in the example with the author from Canada. We help the researcher respond to media regarding the validity of any findings, even as the institutional investigation into misconduct is not done, but the institution is supportive of that cadence.
It lets us clear the air sooner on the validity of findings, and that serves a lot of people. Everyone who supports a free exchange of ideas has an opportunity in this moment, and we really think the only way to move forward is to do this together. Yes, the information system in which we are today has changed. It's scary. We're not ignoring the possibility of weaponization for anything we say.
But if we get started living out our values. Now, we will one day be at a level where we can do that at full tilt, the way we really want to. And one of the elements that sets publishers apart is that we're willing to go into the public arena for papers that we've validated. We're willing to be visible not only for the credit of publishing helpful research, but also when things could go South.
Doing this could put a target on our backs, but it also gives us a platform to talk about what we have done and what we will do. And it gives us credit with those who look for the ones who take a stand. We know what can happen if we stick our neck out. We've been in some uncomfortable places, as this photo shows, but we think the cost is worth it if we do it right. I was thinking the other day the theme of international open Axis Wake later this month is who owns the knowledge.
Maybe some of you will be participating in that. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone will do for me when I think about that question. Who owns the knowledge. I think that as part of that, we have to consider who is willing to go to bat for research in a public setting when the stakes are high. And as publishers, when we do this, it really sets us apart. Looking at the audience today, you all know your authors, the disciplines you handle, the data, the figures, the complexities of their funding, landscapes.
Every case looks different, that's for certain. And we don't have endless time. But by being committed to these cases where we can and when we can, we can help. We can catalyze the communications that help replace public doubt in scientists and in institutions with public confidence, one interaction at a time. I like to think that maybe someday, instead of all this emphasis on Publish or perish, the public will be saying we can see how scientists publish with purpose and how they stand behind their work too.
After all, trust isn't built by never failing. It's built by failing responsibly and transparently. The final way I want to talk about engaging, to show the value of journals, and discuss how to discuss how journals can help build trust in research and publishing moves us to Capitol Hill. The world of policymakers. How many people here think policy makers understand what journals do besides peer review.
OK, there are no hands up. Just making that clear. That's what I expected. How many of you have watched or read anything from a congressional hearing on science in the last couple of years. Anybody? OK.
More hands, so not everyone's favorite reading material or viewing material, I'm sure. But the reality is more policymakers are paying attention to journals right now than ever before. Personally, I've never experienced anything like the last few years in terms of policymaker interest in our journals. Here's a picture of my boss. After speaking before the Senate subcommittee on COVID origins last year, I showed a slide of that hearing just previously too.
But this picture on the screen is after the hearing was done, you can see Holden Thorp, our editor in chief, shaking the chairman's hand. He just spent a while explaining the process by which we published certain research and commentary to, and the chairman said it changed his understanding of how journals work and what they publish. That was really gratifying to hear. Strangely, like I alluded to before, I've kind of come to appreciate hearings.
I've actually started to check out the hearing schedule every Monday, looking to see where science could be a feature. I've heard it said that one, one of the most overlooked roles in the world of science and policy, is the role for people who can provide options to decision makers. Hearings are a place for that, in part. At this hearing last year, we got to explain how journals support that effort.
Journal's role is vital. Hearings are also part of the way that Congress establishes a record on topics that many people care about. If you prepare a written testimony, and I certainly didn't understand this until last year, you're preparing it not just for the people in the room, but for an audience that's much wider. Like I said, I didn't realize that until I saw how much Holden's testimony from 2024 was referenced and quoted still to this day.
And I'm glad, because working with a team to prepare, it took a long time. In the last few weeks I've been going with my colleagues to visit hill staffers for something much less nerve wracking than a hearing. And maybe some of you are doing this too. But I've been there to talk about our approach to public access. I don't know how many times I've heard in those meetings.
I think in almost every meeting, actually. What else do you do besides peer review. And for me, that was really clarifying, because if policymakers don't know what publishers actually do, then we can't assume the public or the press knows either. That's why telling our story isn't really optional right now. I think it's essential. We're proud to be telling it when we go.
We explained some of our daily work things we do like performing validation checks for image integrity. Author coy. References and data openness. Stewarding communication that responds to public concern. Updating the scholarly record should that be needed. Sometimes even years later, and standing behind research we validated in public forums. As part of one of the hill meetings, I explained that that tar paper briefing we'd facilitated, they didn't even know publishers did things like that.
Their eyes really lit up, and it seemed to strike them as an antidote to some of the difficult debates we're having now. After we explain all this, what we do to the policymakers that we've visited so far, they've really been surprised and appreciative. We want more people on the hill to know about the processes behind our work to vet, curate and publish science. We also want them to be more aware of what we're publishing week to week, the actual studies in January 2024.
Relatedly, our team did something else focused on getting research to policymakers. And I should note that since policymakers aren't our team's typical audience, we really had to take some time to study this landscape with our colleagues in the ala's office of government relations. They gave us a lot of help. But eventually, in January last year, we launched a brand new offering to reporters who reach policymakers.
It's called policy Pac. We launched it because we'd read a top secret report about policymakers media habits, and it said that if there was one form of media that both Democrats and Republicans were consuming, more of it was newsletters. But at the science press team, we were not reaching the reporters that those newsletters historically.
In the months after we launched policy Pac, though, to try to fill this gap, we saw a difference. More coverage of our research papers across our journals showed up in top policy outlets like e! And e! News, the hill, Bloomberg, Semafor. There's more work to do, but there's been some good progress here, and we've got a write up on the science editor's blog that explains what we did with policy pack.
It's very scalable. We'd love to hear if folks try something like this and improve upon it. In the last nearly two years, we've seen such good success with policy pack, leading to news stories that now we're doing something new. Just in the last two weeks, we're making a version of it available to policy makers directly. Last month, we connected with five professional staff members on various committees.
We're excited to work with the committees because we know they're typically more bipartisan. They are now getting the post embargo version of the policy pack. That includes 250 word summaries of the research. Our team writes those and author contact info readily displayed. We're continuing to research these hill members to looking into the issues they're tackling in their home districts.
We want to be positioned to connect them with science family authors who could inform those issues. Everyone in the room knows the value of connecting to policymakers making sure they have evidence at hand. Not that they always use it, but I think it's our job to try to get it to them. And we've heard from our authors, as you probably have, too, that connecting them with policymakers one time can lead to relationships that last for years.
In June, we arranged for one of our authors to participate in a briefing where she connected with policymakers from over 40 states in the course of an hour. The event was one we collaborated on with our colleagues at the ala's epi center, which is focused on getting research into the hands of local and state policymakers like the National League of Cities and the National Governors Association.
Those kinds of groups. The science author we featured in the briefing was so thrilled with the reach she got in one hour. She connected to policymakers in inland and coastal states, a wide variety. In this case, she was talking about planning to mitigate damage from climate change related flooding. She gave very, very actionable, evidence based advice. She was one of three speakers, and the policy maker said the webinar was really helpful to them because it gave them direct access to clear communicators who shared expertise in a relatable way.
It made them feel equipped to begin to inform some tough calls they had to make in their home states, and to know who they could call if they needed more help. They said, can you please do more webinars like this. Giving us direct scientist connections. It was encouraging to see their appetite, and I think publishers have great opportunities here. Connecting authors and policy makers on key issues where policymakers really need the help.
It makes otherwise invisible scientists visible in these spaces. As publishers, we know the truth about what we publish can be told in various ways in news stories and soundbites on T.V. And that may be especially so on the hill. The CEO of ars, Sudha parekh has been on the Hill a lot himself lately, testifying about the importance of science funding.
With some success, he recently said sometimes success is quiet and that really struck me. I'd add to that that sometimes success takes a long time or requires strange, unconventional approaches, or invites a really uncomfortable challenge. But we have confidence that if we continue to give policymakers high quality, peer reviewed evidence, today's unused study could be tomorrow's cornerstone.
Government officials have an incentive to act quickly and decisively as policy windows open unexpectedly. Our job is to make sure the evidence is already on their shelf. OK, I will wrap up now. Thank you for your patience so far. This slide already slipped out, but I wanted to ask how many of you saw this headline in the Wall Street Journal last month.
OK how many of you had strong, strong reactions. Hahaha Yeah. For me, it really inspired some feelings too. I thought about calling the author, especially as I saw this person continuing to post similarly on social media. But who wants to call up someone who's diametrically opposed to your view. But in the end, for me, though, fear is kind of a good indicator of something that might be worth doing.
So I set up a meeting with this person and we had a great conversation. All credit to them. And they acknowledged something I thought worth sharing with the audience here today. As much as journals aren't the approach. Aren't the approach they endorse. They are focused on preprints, preprints, preprints. When it comes to public trust building, which is a concern we share.
Journals are best positioned to do some of the most impactful work, including through efforts I've outlined today and that you all are doing. And these are efforts we can all improve upon or do in ways that make sense for our publications and our authors. As I told a reporter at Inside Higher Ed last week, and as I've said earlier in this talk, if we want to help improve public trust in science, ensuring research is open isn't enough on its own.
There are other factors to consider the way authors share their data and what form it's in, the way authors of any study commit to engaging, or how publishers set them up to do that, and with whom. Authors ability to articulate what they know and what they don't. This is all in our realm as publishers, to get in the best possible shape for public consumption. And to be creative with highlighting.
We've actually found this process can be fun, including for the authors. We held a briefing about a year ago. The paper was about a newly characterized byproduct created when our drinking water is treated. It could be a problem, this byproduct, or it might not be. They don't know yet. And we worked with the authors to make communicating the uncertainties in their study a feature of their communications.
Doing this led to very clear reporting on a topic that could have otherwise caused a lot of confusion and worry, and the authors really enjoyed being able to create that good outcome by focusing on what they didn't know yet. We held a briefing last week where we encouraged our authors to focus on talking about data access. It was an unusual case.
The editors at science and the authors had worked carefully to set up an arrangement that balanced openness with safety. The speakers made the related discussion really interesting for the briefing. They helped reporters understand the time required to carefully consider what data was made available and the emphasis on safety, and we saw these themes reflected in news coverage for the public.
As journals, we are more committed than ever to showing our processes and our value. We're talking to the people in the messy places where the research is seemingly in opposition, or where there are questions about misconduct, or where policy needs more evidence to be sound. We move forward one step at a time, sometimes one section of a study at a time, like the data access part. We prepare clear offerings, and we're experienced enough to know that they're going to be differences in questions.
I'm happy to report that I'm seeing some of our special efforts being respected. And when they're not, we'll just speak up more. You all know this too. As I look out today, I know how dedicated everybody here is. And I truly believe that if we lean into this together, choosing transparency, connection and courage, then step by step, we won't just defend. Trust in science will grow it.
One effort at a time will be replacing public doubt with public confidence because let's face it, if we don't, tik tok will. So Thanks, everybody, for your attention and I'd love to hear your questions or comments to extend the conversation. Thank you.
Terrific science colleagues in the back I can call on. Oh go ahead Bill. Bill kasdorf kasdorf and associates. Well, first of all, Thanks for advancing science. Thank you. This this is really good. I just wanted to make a comment that I've in my career, my long career mostly worked with publishers, but more recently I've had more experience working with research organizations.
And it's interesting that the first time I had a client like that, I. One of my initial meetings with them was to sit down with their CEO executive director. I can't remember which her title was, but I said so. I presume that your main primary audience is other researchers, because that's mostly what researchers are wanting their colleagues to know. And she said, no, our main audience is policymakers and secondary audience is public.
Third down is other researchers. So that's kind of a little corner of publishing that people often just don't think about. That I think is really relevant to this conversation because that's what they're about. Thanks for sharing that. What topic, what topic did that were those researchers focused on. Do you remember.
I don't tend to give information about my clients directly. And there's a variety now I've worked with several in different areas, some in science, some in education et cetera but a different kind of organization whose focus is purely on policy makers. Interesting Thanks for sharing that. Yeah I've got a. Hi Jonathan Schultz from American Heart Association. A lot of what you've been talking about is kind of on the backdrop.
Some of this is there are fewer and fewer, you know, science reporters and journals, and even organizations that regularly report on science. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that. Has your approach changed how you reach out to reporters and all that kind of stuff. Because, you know, if there's fewer outlets, it's more likely that one potentially negative voice will kind of be louder in the crowd in a sense, you know?
Yeah it's a really good point. Our team actually has a retreat later this month focused kind of all about that. So changes in the media landscape and thinking about who else we should be reaching now because they're doing a lot of science communication. One good thing, I think I would say, is that some of the best and veteran science journals are still there.
And maybe their work is getting syndicated a little bit more. So they're having a good reach. But it's a crazy, crowded, noisy, problematic landscape. And we've been thinking a lot about folks who don't get their science news from traditional media, and they get it from other sources. So we're trying to begin to engage with some content creators. But it's a slow process.
We're first holding meetings with them. And understanding, like one of my slides showed what their science storytelling goals are. And we're fully aware that they would operate differently than journals do if we gave science, if we helped them get science, they may cover it, but they're going to cover it in their own authentic way. That's why their audiences are drawn to them. So I think I would have more to say next year about who were successfully engaging with.
But it's definitely something we're exploring here. Oh, Hi. Heather stains from Delta bank. Great great presentation. I was excited to hear about policy Pac and Delta think we do a lot of interviews like in Bill's position, a lot of them with researchers and more and more I hear researchers variety of ages, variety of different fields say, wouldn't it be great if I could just get something that would come to me with like a bunch of links to things and we're like, Yeah, it's called a newsletter.
And a lot of folks feel like newsletters are literally, you know, old news. I have always been a newsletter person myself, but were you surprised that to kind of land on that newsletter format, and how would you tell people who maybe feel like newsletters are just, you know, so yesterday, Yeah, we were surprised. We thought we thought we might see one of the social media platforms is the most consumed kind of media form, but we didn't.
It's newsletters. But I relate to this because I'm struggling with all the input myself. But there are certain newsletters I get every day that I definitely check. And as I ask more and more people across the team in the organization, I think they say that too. So I think that's what I would say.
Real on the ground feedback. Thanks Thanks. Wonderful way to kick things off. You are such a role model in fighting insanity with smarts. So way to go. We're going to have a short break to get ready for our next session, which is the kickoff of our round tables.
You'll see we have 45 minutes this morning with round tables, and then 45 minutes to close the day, in part because we're hoping that conversation will continue throughout the day. So short break. Welcome back. In about 15 minutes. Thanks OK.
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