This week, we learn about the NIH’s new Public Access Policy, which aims to make NIH-funded research outputs available as quickly as possible. We explore Elsevier’s collaborative approach to building and implementing responsible AI, and we read about a US$3.3 million grant awarded to PLOS by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We also consider how AI can be used to revolutionize research management workflows. Finally, we read about a new journal compensating peer reviewers with cryptocurrency and recommend some longer reads for the upcoming holiday period.
To read:
NIH introduces new Public Access Policy via Under the Poliscope | 2-minute read
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced a new Public Access Policy that will ensure the results of NIH-funded research are available without a 12-month embargo period. It is hoped the policy will allow researchers, clinicians, students and the public to access results “as quickly as possible”. The NIH is also providing guidance for researchers and institutions to improve the discoverability of their research through the use of metadata, persistent identifiers and NIH-supported repositories. Comments on this guidance are welcome until 21 February 2025.
Building and implementing responsible AI via Research Information | 4-minute read
“A responsible AI [artificial intelligence] framework isn’t just a moral imperative; it’s a strategic necessity,” explains Harry Muncey (Senior Director of Data Science and Responsible AI at Elsevier). In this article, Harry discusses the socio-technical nature of AI and describes Scopus AI – a generative AI tool that creates research summaries from the Scopus abstract and citation database – as an example of ethical AI development.
PLOS receives grant from Gates Foundation via PLOS Blogs | 1-minute read
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded PLOS a US$3.3 million grant to support the elimination of article process charges (APCs). The 3-year funding package will allow PLOS to reduce or remove financial barriers to authors publishing in their journals. As Niamh O’Connor (Chief Publishing Officer at PLOS) explains, the goal is to “demonstrate the feasibility of APC-free, open science-based publishing models and inspire a transformative shift across the scholarly communication landscape”.
AI for research management via LSE Blogs | 5-minute read
How can AI support research management workflows? In this article, Anna Aston (Section Manager at Imperial College London) explains how research managers and administrations can leverage AI tools to juggle conflicting and concurrent responsibilities. Tired of reformatting data, trawling for relevant research articles or checking for data entry errors? Anna suggests AI tools that, when guided by expert human oversight, could revolutionize research management workflows.
ResearchHub Journal compensates peer reviewers with cryptocurrency via Nature | 4-minute read
“It’s a strange oddity of history that peer reviewers don’t get paid,” says Brian Armstrong (CEO and Co-founder of Coinbase). Earlier this year, researchers filed a complaint alleging six major publishers agreed “to not pay [scholars] for their peer review services”. In a move that bucks this trend, the new ResearchHub Journal is offering peer reviewers the equivalent of US$150 per review, paid via the cryptocurrency ResearchCoin. Learn more about the new journal and its funding system in this article.
Recommended reads
Found yourself with a little more time over the holiday period? Settle down with a long read recommended by the Open Pharma and Oxford PharmaGenesis AI experts.
- AI 2041: ten visions for our future by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan
- Co-intelligence: living and working with AI by Ethan Mollick
- Deep medicine: how artificial intelligence can make healthcare human again by Eric Topol
- Life 3.0: being human in the age of artificial intelligence by Max Tegmark
- Generative AI in the pharmaceutical industry: moving from hype to reality by McKinsey & Company
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