Scrutable

‘Devastating career event’

A well-established rule previously prevented ARC applicants from including articles that were not yet peer-reviewed in lists of their own publications. But the rule changed in the 2021 funding round for Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRA) and mid-career Future Fellowships to include any mention of preprints at all – even when used to refer to the research of others. Researchers say they were not informed of the change.

One scientist said it was not possible to cite all relevant research in her field without referring to preprints. “Otherwise, it forces us to plagiarise,” she said.

Another said: “I made a reference to two preprints that I did not co-author. These are two fairly prominent preprints in the field and had I neglected to cite them I would have been guilty of academic misconduct.”

One astrophysicist told Guardian Australia that after receiving positive comments from ARC assessors, his application was deemed ineligible for citing a piece of software housed on the arXiv server, even though it was not a preprint.

shpalman wrote: Fri Aug 20, 2021 7:20 am [url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... fine-print]‘Devastating career event’[/url]

A well-established rule previously prevented ARC applicants from including articles that were not yet peer-reviewed in lists of their own publications. But the rule changed in the 2021 funding round for Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRA) and mid-career Future Fellowships to include any mention of preprints at all – even when used to refer to the research of others. Researchers say they were not informed of the change.

One scientist said it was not possible to cite all relevant research in her field without referring to preprints. “Otherwise, it forces us to plagiarise,” she said.

Another said: “I made a reference to two preprints that I did not co-author. These are two fairly prominent preprints in the field and had I neglected to cite them I would have been guilty of academic misconduct.”

One astrophysicist told Guardian Australia that after receiving positive comments from ARC assessors, his application was deemed ineligible for citing a piece of software housed on the arXiv server, even though it was not a preprint.

That's... nuts, even the original rule about the candidate's own preprints. I haven't done grant reviewing for a while,only job interviewing but certainly I wouldn't object if candidates for a post listed (a) papers in press (b) papers submitted. In the past I have asked for copies of work submitted, not because I doubted its existence, but because I wanted to assess it and discuss it along with the published work. After all, it is probably the candidate's latest work. The existence of preprints (such as on ResearchSquare) just makes this easier. And it may be the way forward for all scientific publishing.
But to rule out citing someone else's preprints... just, what?
A surprising proportion of my research career has been spent writing unsuccessful grant applications...it is bad enough getting a rejection, without a piece of nonsense like this being involved.

Allo V Psycho wrote: Fri Aug 20, 2021 8:16 am

shpalman wrote: Fri Aug 20, 2021 7:20 am [url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... fine-print]‘Devastating career event’[/url]

A well-established rule previously prevented ARC applicants from including articles that were not yet peer-reviewed in lists of their own publications. But the rule changed in the 2021 funding round for Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRA) and mid-career Future Fellowships to include any mention of preprints at all – even when used to refer to the research of others. Researchers say they were not informed of the change.

One scientist said it was not possible to cite all relevant research in her field without referring to preprints. “Otherwise, it forces us to plagiarise,” she said.

Another said: “I made a reference to two preprints that I did not co-author. These are two fairly prominent preprints in the field and had I neglected to cite them I would have been guilty of academic misconduct.”

One astrophysicist told Guardian Australia that after receiving positive comments from ARC assessors, his application was deemed ineligible for citing a piece of software housed on the arXiv server, even though it was not a preprint.

That's... nuts, even the original rule about the candidate's own preprints. I haven't done grant reviewing for a while,only job interviewing but certainly I wouldn't object if candidates for a post listed (a) papers in press (b) papers submitted. In the past I have asked for copies of work submitted, not because I doubted its existence, but because I wanted to assess it and discuss it along with the published work. After all, it is probably the candidate's latest work. The existence of preprints (such as on ResearchSquare) just makes this easier. And it may be the way forward for all scientific publishing.
But to rule out citing someone else's preprints... just, what?
A surprising proportion of my research career has been spent writing unsuccessful grant applications...it is bad enough getting a rejection, without a piece of nonsense like this being involved.

I agree.

I'm vaguely aware that some academics are really upset by what they see as the undermining of the role of peer reviewed journal articles. They worry that if everyone reads and shares the preprints then journals may be less relevant. I assume that some of them are in a senior positions in Australia.

Woodchopper wrote: Fri Aug 20, 2021 8:59 am

Allo V Psycho wrote: Fri Aug 20, 2021 8:16 am

shpalman wrote: Fri Aug 20, 2021 7:20 am [url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... fine-print]‘Devastating career event’[/url]

That's... nuts, even the original rule about the candidate's own preprints. I haven't done grant reviewing for a while,only job interviewing but certainly I wouldn't object if candidates for a post listed (a) papers in press (b) papers submitted. In the past I have asked for copies of work submitted, not because I doubted its existence, but because I wanted to assess it and discuss it along with the published work. After all, it is probably the candidate's latest work. The existence of preprints (such as on ResearchSquare) just makes this easier. And it may be the way forward for all scientific publishing.
But to rule out citing someone else's preprints... just, what?
A surprising proportion of my research career has been spent writing unsuccessful grant applications...it is bad enough getting a rejection, without a piece of nonsense like this being involved.

I agree.

I'm vaguely aware that some academics are really upset by what they see as the undermining of the role of peer reviewed journal articles. They worry that if everyone reads and shares the preprints then journals may be less relevant. I assume that some of them are in a senior positions in Australia.

The problem with the old publication model is that the peer-reviewed journals were expensive for libraries, and access was limited to those with a subscription. The problem with the new publication model is that predatory journals will publish any old rubbish and good papers can get swamped, and researchers can't publish at all unless they can raise substantial sums - one very ordinary journal in my field is now charging £2,600 per article, so new researchers are very nearly locked out of publishing at all. The rise of pre-print servers is in part a way of alleviating these problems. A version of the paper (essentially identical except for typesetting) can be published and is free to use, They often also carry a comments facility, so papers can be 'pre-refereed'. So I don't think it is the academic community as a whole that has a problem with pre-prints - universities and some journals are engaging with the idea. I've recently started posting pre-prints too. I still cannot understand why the Australian Research Council is doing this.


Edit: next sentence and the reference.
Also where speed is needed (e.g. Covid papers) preprints are invaluable.
For the rise of preprints, see:
Polka, J. and Penfold, N.C., 2020. Biomedical preprints per month, by source and as a fraction of total literature. [online] Available at: <https://zenodo.org/record/3819276#.YOteGehKiUk> [Accessed 11 July 2021].

A controversial change to Australian Research Council funding rules disqualified academic grant applications totalling $22m, according to government documents tabled in the Senate on Thursday.

A total of 32 funding applications were deemed ineligible by the federal government agency as a result of a new rule that bans applicants from citing preprint material in proposals for funding.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... SApp_Other

Allo V Psycho wrote: Fri Aug 20, 2021 3:24 pm

Woodchopper wrote: Fri Aug 20, 2021 8:59 am

Allo V Psycho wrote: Fri Aug 20, 2021 8:16 am

That's... nuts, even the original rule about the candidate's own preprints. I haven't done grant reviewing for a while,only job interviewing but certainly I wouldn't object if candidates for a post listed (a) papers in press (b) papers submitted. In the past I have asked for copies of work submitted, not because I doubted its existence, but because I wanted to assess it and discuss it along with the published work. After all, it is probably the candidate's latest work. The existence of preprints (such as on ResearchSquare) just makes this easier. And it may be the way forward for all scientific publishing.
But to rule out citing someone else's preprints... just, what?
A surprising proportion of my research career has been spent writing unsuccessful grant applications...it is bad enough getting a rejection, without a piece of nonsense like this being involved.

I agree.

I'm vaguely aware that some academics are really upset by what they see as the undermining of the role of peer reviewed journal articles. They worry that if everyone reads and shares the preprints then journals may be less relevant. I assume that some of them are in a senior positions in Australia.

The problem with the old publication model is that the peer-reviewed journals were expensive for libraries, and access was limited to those with a subscription. The problem with the new publication model is that predatory journals will publish any old rubbish and good papers can get swamped, and researchers can't publish at all unless they can raise substantial sums - one very ordinary journal in my field is now charging £2,600 per article, so new researchers are very nearly locked out of publishing at all. The rise of pre-print servers is in part a way of alleviating these problems. A version of the paper (essentially identical except for typesetting) can be published and is free to use, They often also carry a comments facility, so papers can be 'pre-refereed'. So I don't think it is the academic community as a whole that has a problem with pre-prints - universities and some journals are engaging with the idea. I've recently started posting pre-prints too. I still cannot understand why the Australian Research Council is doing this.

I agree. The only explanation I can think of is that some highly placed scientists believe that there is no value in any preprint. They're wrong though. Especially during the pandemic pretty much every important piece of research has been published as a preprint first.

This letter provides some context

Seems a small change in rules, not properly advertised and over zealously implemented has caused the damage.

Chris Preston wrote: Thu Aug 26, 2021 11:53 am This letter provides some context

Seems a small change in rules, not properly advertised and over zealously implemented has caused the damage.

I think it is indeed ambiguous. The letter says:

A very subtle change was made in the Instructions to Applicants in ROPE – Research Outputs which changed the sentence ‘Do not include pre-prints in your research output listing’ to ‘Do not include or refer to pre-prints in your application’.

If I had applied previously, and knew that I shouldn't include my own pre-prints in Research Outputs, I might reasonably interpret the changed version to mean I should not include or refer to my own preprints anywhere in the application, but not have interpreted it to mean I should not refer to anyone else's preprints.
Edit: I would sign the letter but don;t know if that is appropriate for a non-Oz person.