Dan Brockington
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danbrockington.bsky.social
Dan Brockington
@danbrockington.bsky.social

ICREA Research Professor at ICTA-UAB. Posts on Open Science; Political Ecology; Data Justice; Conservation; Children's Fiction. More at www.danbrockington.com and www.samtiand.com

Environmental science 55%
Geography 14%
Pinned
Profits from scientific publishing are eye-watering, costing us billions. In ‘The Drain of Scientific Publishing’ (arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820), (building on ‘The Strain of Scientific Publishing’ doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00327) we show how it is harmful – and unnecessary.
The Drain of Scientific Publishing
The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science. We need the most powerful members of the research community, funders, governments and ...
arxiv.org

Here's a typically thoughtful piece from @anotherbobsmith.bsky.social on prioritisation: the push to generate prioritisations stems from not understanding how they become effective. Are journal editors also culpable, as they have lapped up lots of this science. Why did they think it might help?

Many thanks for this fascinating discussion
Yay, our first podcast citation @danbrockington.bsky.social @paolocrosetto.bsky.social et al.
They discuss The Drain starting at minute 33:20 in the context of a protein science journal published by Wiley and also mention @elife.bsky.social. It's introduced as "almost an economics paper" :D
Yay, our first podcast citation @danbrockington.bsky.social @paolocrosetto.bsky.social et al.
They discuss The Drain starting at minute 33:20 in the context of a protein science journal published by Wiley and also mention @elife.bsky.social. It's introduced as "almost an economics paper" :D

@geofrancismasse.bsky.social I gather you are cold. Come here for a swim. You will feel warm and invigorated.

Another beautiful dawn. Air a but cold, but the water is warm. I think you can see water vapour in the air low over the sea when the air is that much colder than the sea is.

One of the great things about Barcelona - working with the @pollenetwork.bsky.social secretariat: Laila, Ele, Rebecca and Blanket (the cat). Here planning POLLEN comms up the coast in Masnou. We will be recruiting one more person to this team.

Reposted by Dan Brockington

"The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science..."

arxiv.org/pdf/2511.04820

#science #peerreview #scientificmethod #scientificpublishing
arxiv.org

Am in Leeds for a viva and am so lucky to catch the Peninnes in a cold snap. Glorious orange and pink clouds and views from the train this morning.
First proper snowy woodland walk of the winter. Magic.

Where do they all go? Surely the building has to fill up with spoons at some point.

This blog summarises the crippling intellectual and scholarly consequences of the financial drain of commercial scientific publishing.

Builds on earlier work on strain and oligopoly of publishing:

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: bit.ly/StrainQSS
Oligopoly: bit.ly/OligSciPub
70 teaspoons placed in tearooms around the institute & observed weekly over 5 months. 80% of spoons disappeared; spoon halflife~81 days. Communal room halflife lower than in specific labs. 250 spoons annually required to maintain 70 spoon population.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute
Objectives To determine the overall rate of loss of workplace teaspoons and whether attrition and displacement are correlated with the relative value of the teaspoons or type of tearoom. Design Longitudinal cohort study. Setting Research institute ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

We were very fortunate to have Dorothea Kleine from IGSD and @sheffielduni.bsky.social at @icta-uab.bsky.social yesterday talking about codesign and her work on digital reset (shorturl.at/WiYGL). Dorothea (and @rosaleenduffy.bsky.social) gave me my first Dolly Parton figurine, pictured between us.
First proper snowy woodland walk of the winter. Magic.

Reposted by Dan Brockington

✍️💸Money, Time, Trust, Control – How commercial publishers drain science

This article by our researcher @danbrockington.bsky.social, together with Aileen Fyfe and Stefanie Haustein, tackles this question in the blog of @lseusablog.bsky.social

blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...
Money, Time, Trust, Control – How commercial publishers drain science - Impact of Social Sciences
Have the interests of commercial publishers now become antithetical to the pursuit of knowledge?
blogs.lse.ac.uk

Reposted by Elizabeth Stokoe

Working with real metascientists on this project has been an incredible learning experience. This is quite important for scientific publishing.

Reposted by Dan Brockington

Science under the control of major publishers: profit over knowledge

A new analysis led by ICTA-UAB researcher @danbrockington.bsky.social, shows that in scientific publishing, commercial interests put profit ahead of advancing knowledge and academic integrity.

www.uab.cat/web/sala-de-...
Science under the control of major publishers: profit over knowledge
The current publishing system is harmful to science. A new analysis involving ICTA-UAB, Spain, shows that in scientific publishing, commercial...
www.uab.cat

Reposted by Dan Brockington

Las publicaciones científicas priorizan las ganancias “a la integridad académica”, según un estudio del ICTA-UAB liderado por el investigador @danbrockington.bsky.social @icreacommunity.bsky.social

www.lavanguardia.com/sociedad/202...
Las publicaciones científicas priorizan las ganancias “a la integridad académica”, según un estudio
Advierte de un “drenaje de fondos” del sistema científico BARCELONA, 19 (EUROPA PRESS) Un estudio con participación del Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología Ambiental de la...
www.lavanguardia.com

I'm a little late to this but this is a thoughtful thread about a new side of conservation which I had not considered before. Congrats on the article and thanks for sharing.

Here was dawn over the Med this morning. Enjoy!

Reposted by Dan Brockington

🎉Aquesta setmana comença la #BiennalCiutatiCiència de l' @ajuntamentbcn.bsky.social.

Enguany, dedicada a la revolució quàntica, amb la participació dels ICREA Antonio Acín, @gemmadlc.bsky.social, Anna Sanpera, @ricardsole.bsky.social i Oriol Romero-Isart.

📘 Consulta el programa: short.do/E9xYVN
Bienal Ciudad y Ciencia 2025
La cuarta edición de la Bienal Ciudad y Ciencia tendrá lugar simultáneamente en Barcelona y en Madrid entre el 18 y el 23 de noviembre de 2025.
www.biennalciutaticiencia.barcelona

Reposted by Dan Brockington

The EU’s new climate target will allow millions of offsets to be used supposedly to meet the EU’s emissions reductions.

reddmonitor.substack.com/p/eu-weakens...
EU weakens its 2040 climate goal with an international carbon credits loophole
“EU’s new Climate Law has opened the door to a dangerous expansion of the offsets industry.”
reddmonitor.substack.com

This is a thought-provoking and exciting blog cum news item about vital change in scientific publishing.

Reposted by Dan Brockington

Gentle request that @altmetric.com and @linkedin.com resume contact to be able to track academic LinkedIn activity on AltMetric.

More and more scientific discourse is happening on BlueSky (tracked) and LinkedIn (not tracked).

@linkedin.com let AltMetric use your API and include you! NOW!

Reposted by Dan Brockington

Think about the way that the current scientific publishing system is draining resources out of the research ecosystem... That drain is most obvious in terms of money (and this is so despite #openaccess), but there's also an erosion of time, trust and control [1/n]

Reposted by Paolo Crosetto

This brilliant graphic from @stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca captures really clearly the challenge of the drain, and the hope of alternatives that can free us from it.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk 🎤

If you’ve read this far and still need convincing, please check out our preprint arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 and this infographic: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
10/10
The Drain of Scientific Publishing

arxiv.org/pdf/2511.04820

Reposted by Dan Brockington

Opinion: Chaos is coming for scholarly publishing.

Buckling of commercial models alongside maturing of community-led efforts promises major shifts, says Caroline Edwards.

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...
Chaos is coming for scholarly publishing - Research Professional News
Buckling of commercial models alongside maturing of community-led efforts promises major shifts, says Caroline Edwards
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk 🎤

If you’ve read this far and still need convincing, please check out our preprint arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 and this infographic: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
10/10