14
1. Research and Communication
1.1. Researchers are driven by a desire to enhance knowledge and understanding of the world we inhabit, and to communicate their findings to others so that they may learn about them and benefit from them. Governments, businesses, charities and others invest large sums of money in research in order to achieve those benefits: to increase knowledge and understanding, but also to make tangible contributions to social welfare and to economic growth. For research and its products are not just economic assets: they contribute immeasurably to the intellectual and cultural life of the nation. Governments across the world therefore see the vitality of the research base as fundamental to the health of a modern society and economy. Generating social and economic benefits through investments in research are thus key considerations in the development of public policy.
1.2. The development of effective channels of communication between researchers across the globe has been a critical factor underpinning the growth in our understanding of the world over the past 350 years. Since the establishment of the first scientific journals in 1665, the communication of theoretical and empirical findings through such journals and other publications has been at the heart of the scientific and broader research enterprise. The core functions of these journals were identified by Henry Oldenburg, the first Secretary of the Royal Society and the creator of its Philosophical Transactions:
- registering research findings, their timing, and the person(s) responsible
- reviewing and certifying the findings before they are published
- disseminating the new knowledge
- preserving a record of the findings for the long term.
1.3. Communicating research results through journals has proved remarkably effective in enabling researchers to build on the work of others, to scrutinise and refine the results, to contribute additional ideas and observations, and to formulate new questions and theories. As the Royal Society notes in its report on Science as an Open Enterprise,[1] ‘openness is intrinsic to the progress of science’. Journals play a vital role in facilitating that progress, as key channels of communication which also help to build up the ‘invisible colleges’ of researchers working in fields of common interest.
1.4. The ways in which journals fulfil their core functions have been transformed over the past twenty years, as a result of changing technologies, but also the combined efforts of publishers, editors, and researchers themselves. So have the behaviours
- ↑ Royal Society, Science as an Open Enterprise, 2012, available at: http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/science-public-enterprise/
