There are three particular issues for which I want to grab readers’ attention in this edition:
Author-paid Open Access to PUS, once again;
The International Year of Statistics: on the Public Understanding of Statistics;
Welcome to four new members of the PUS Editorial Board.
First, the issue of Open Access (OA) to scientific publications continues to burn in a globalised world. Clearly unequal access to knowledge and information continues to undermine the public spheres worldwide. After a debate at PCST Florence in April 2012, we consulted the board of PUS, readers and contributors, and addressed the issue in the PUS Blog (http://pus-journal.blogspot.co.uk/). We considered the arguments and then defined our position, a holding position with three elements:
PUS does not advocate Open Access nor has it become an author-pays Open Access journal. We want to wait and see whether OA runs only a minor risk of adversely affecting unfunded scholarship and scholarship originating in less pushy regions of the globe. One shoe does not fit all, and the PUS team does not want OA to interfere with its strategy of becoming a more global research platform of public understanding of science beyond the very active North-Atlantic-Australian context.
SAGE, our publisher, offers an opt-in author-pays Open Access (SAGE Choice) for those who choose to do so, the fee is currently £400/$750; some authors are obliged to OA by their funders, as in the UK research funded by the Wellcome Trust. We will observe closely whether an opt-in policy creates a two-tier system of citations in the coming years. Currently, the uptake of this scheme is still rare (only three articles out of 287). We will keep an open mind on the issue and follow the debates.
SAGE is now Romeo Green in terms of archiving: authors can archive the accepted version of their paper on their personal website or institutional repository with no restrictions.
Second, the year 2013 has been declared the International Year of Statistics (see http://www.statistics2013.org/). For PUS such ‘year of X’ events are phenomena to study carefully, but also an invitation to make a contribution. These ‘event makings’ are formats of public engagement with motives, actors and outcomes, some intended others unintended. PUS welcomes empirical evaluations. However, the International Year of Statistics is for PUS also an opportunity to link up to the concerns of the statistics community. We have therefore invited Fabienne Crettaz (University of Lausanne) to review the problem of ‘public understanding of statistics’ in an essay. For many statistics professionals, the ‘public understanding’ is a deficit problem of public ignorance of the laws of probabilities. Our 30 years discussions over the ‘deficit concept’ might make for a useful contribution. Science communication might just have one or two lessons to tell on the experience of fixing ‘public deficits’.
Finally, PUS periodically recruits enthusiastic new blood to its editorial board. I am delighted to have been able to sign up new ambassadors for PUS in Austria, China and the US from among our loyal contributors:
Dominique Brossard (Professor of Communication Studies, University of Wisconsin- Maddison, US) is a plant biologist who moved via Cornell into the field of communication science. She researches the risk communication of the life sciences at the heart of the American corn belt, where she is also very much concerned with the novel situation created by social media.
Nicole Kronberger (Professor of Social Psychology, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria) researches the social representations of emerging science and technology, the significance of values in anchoring the emergent techno-science, and the functions of stereotypes of women scientists for career choices.
Matthew C Nisbet (Professor in Communication Studies, American University, Washington, US), another Cornell alumnus, has observed for years the US debates on climate change and the framing of emerging techno-science, and in this context keeps a keen eye on the significance of Public Relations and the mobilisation of scientists.
Guosheng Wu (Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, Peking University, China) is trained as a geophysicist and moved into the history of science with a focus on the history and phenomenology of ideas. Currently vice-president of the Chinese Society for the History of Science and Technology (CSHST), he developed a keen interest in mapping unconventionally the history of science communication in China.
Be all most welcome to the team!
Martin W Bauer
Editor-in-Chief
August 2013
