The world of scientific journals on the verge of suffocation

Alert. One of the pillars of scientific research is shaking, cracking, or even threatening to collapse. This pillar is the research article, selected and evaluated by newspapers or scientific journals. It was through this medium that Albert Einstein explained his theory of special relativity in 1905 (in the Annalen der Physik ) . Or that Alexander Fleming, in 1929, described the action of penicillin (in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology ). Or that James Watson and Francis Crick described the structure of DNA in 1953 (in the columns of the journal Nature ).

What is being questioned is not the article itself, although it is also changing, but the place it occupies in the scholarly landscape, the way in which it is distributed, evaluated or "consumed." The nature of the research article has indeed changed. "It is no longer a unit of knowledge, but has become a unit of evaluation," recalled Philippe Huneman, a researcher at the Institute of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the CNRS, during the Agora Sciences Université Recherche . Meeting on June 16 and 17 in Paris to "rebuild the university and research," it devoted a session to this subject. "It is a machine for transforming knowledge into symbolic and financial gains. The article is therefore at the heart of the research system and the source of many problems," he explained.

It is no longer just, as it has long been, the culmination of work: it has become at the same time the raison d'être of this activity, the way of measuring its productivity, the standard which distinguishes good researchers from less good ones, the sesame which makes careers. And, for several years, This centrality causes unfortunate overwhelm. Too many articles, too expensive and of too poor quality, are circulating... And the arrival of artificial intelligence only amplifies these defects.

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