Björn Brembs

RE: @uni_regensburg@wisskomm.social

Meine Universität, wie sie genau das Gegenteil von dem macht, was man von einer modernen Universität heutzutage erwarten würde.

Of all three reviews of a recent Science Advances submission, mine was the one that was paricularly critical of the methods, with numerous questions about documentation, references, data, sample sizes, etc.
Guess which reviewer was the only one not invited for a second round of reviews and now the paper is accepted?

Point in case why GlamMagz are the main driver of the #replication crisis and not paper mills or AI slop. The latter are just convenient distractors from the actual problem.

They're not wrong:

"Cancer Research UK (CRUK) has announced it will cease funding #openaccess (#OA) publishing costs, arguing that the current model is failing to deliver a fair and efficient system for disseminating research."

https://www.researchinformation.info/news/cancer-research-uk-to-stop-funding-open-access-publishing/

I wonder if the ORE announcement may have anything to do with that decision?

https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-research-and-innovation-news/new-era-open-research-europe-2026-03-26_en

Are there any similar efforts going on in the UK?

It's beginning!
EU journal replacement set to start this fall. Free OA publishing for all authors from 11 supporting countries. This is Germany's DFG press release:

"New Publishing Opportunities for Researchers: Germany Joins Open Research Europe"

https://www.dfg.de/en/news/news-topics/announcements-proposals/2026/ifr-26-21

#openaccess #publishing #openscience #ORE

At last! It starts this fall:

"A new era for Open Research Europe"

https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-research-and-innovation-news/new-era-open-research-europe-2026-03-26_en

Diamond #openaccess for all authors from 11 supporting countries:

🇦🇹 Austria
🇫🇷 France
🇩🇪 Germany
🇮🇹 Italy
🇳🇱 Netherlands
🇳🇴 Norway
🇵🇹 Portugal
🇸🇮 Slovenia
🇪🇸 Spain
🇸🇪 Sweden
🇨🇭 Switzerland

Now "incentivize" institutions to make this the default #publishing option. #openscience

New data suggest that just like regular journals (i.e., non-GlamMagz), also female authors really do seem to publish higher quality articles - which, consequently, leads to fewer #retractions for both:

https://bjoern.brembs.net/2026/01/retraction-data-are-still-useless-almost/

#womeininstem

How to fund #research with less bias and lower costs? Use more lotteries!

"Lottery before peer review is associated with increased female representation and reduced cost"

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-65660-9

Give that this is only one of many such reports over the last decades, surely, this has become the standard by now? Oh, wait...

"taxpayers will have spent more on the funding process than on the funding itself"

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04060-x

Looks like #academia really is evidence-resistant 🫣

Procurement Before Prestige: How audit rules and public #infrastructure could break #science’s #publishing monopolies.

https://bjoern.brembs.net/2026/01/procurement-before-prestige/

An English version of my post in German for the Verfassungsblog:

https://verfassungsblog.de/rechnungshof-statt-redaktionsschluss/

#academicchatter #research

Die Wissenschaft ist verwundbar. Wir sollten besser jetzt handeln als hinterher jammern. Niemand kann sagen, wir hätten es nicht kommen sehen können:

"Deutschlands Hochschulen im Stresstest: Wenn Populismus auf Wissenschaftsfinanzierung trifft"

https://www.jmwiarda.de/blog/2025/11/18/deutschlands-hochschulen-im-stresstest-wenn-populismus-auf

This should have been big news!

Ten funding agencies from eight European countries have pledged to support a public infrastructure that is poised to replace academic journals:
FWF 🇦🇹
RCN 🇳🇴
Forte 🇸🇪
ARIS 🇸🇮
SRC 🇸🇪
FCT 🇵🇹
CSIC 🇪🇸
DFG 🇩🇪
Formas 🇸🇪
ANR 🇫🇷
Only two of them issued press releases in English:
https://www.fwf.ac.at/en/news/detail/joint-commitment-to-strengthening-open-research-europe
https://www.fccn.pt/en/atualidade/fct-assina-declaracao-fortalecimento-open-research-europe-ore/
and one more, NWO from 🇳🇱 considers joining:
https://www.nwo.nl/en/news/nwo-endorses-joining-open-access-platform-open-research-europe-ore
Why is this BIG? 1/4
#openscience #openaccess

The PNAS paper from Monday got a lot of attention

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2420092122

One particularly attention-grabbing point was the growth of paper mill papers, i.e., the red line.
The area under the black curve is the entire scholarly literature. Judging from reproducibility projects, I have added the # of articles that are likely to be irreproducible (yellow).
Sure, paper mills can some day be a problem. But compared to irreproducibility, it's a really minor problem:

https://bjoern.brembs.net/2024/02/how-reliable-is-the-scholarly-literature/

The appropriate conclusions drawn from a professional analysis of "gransformative agreements":

"Instead of waiting for another 70 years for an OA transition to finally materialize, decision-makers should radically rethink their approach and divest their time and energy from such harmful deals."

https://katinamagazine.org/content/article/open-knowledge/2024/transformative-agreements-a-blind-alley

#openaccess

I usually love the work of Philip Ball, but what the hell is this:

"Is AI leading to a reproducibility crisis in science?"
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03817-6

I mean the first many labs project was published in 2012! We really don't need AI - we have been perfectly capable of creating a reproducibility crisis in science all by ourselves. Humans and GlamMagz like the rag where this article is published in, are all it took. This article just completely ignores all the data we already have.

#openscience