Below are my thoughts and takeaways from the recent Researcher to Reader conference (that’d be the one in 2026, for future readers of this post).
This was my first time attending the Researcher to Reader Conference, and overall it was definitely a good conference and one I’d happily return to. The workshops in particular were a welcome break from the traditional conference formats. One of my biggest issues with most conferences is that there are too many of the same passive talks, too little discussion and generally the same people/talking points. The workshops brought much more interactivity and got people talking. It was refreshing to be in sessions that felt participatory rather than performative – although of course it remains to be seen what the outcome from those will be.
The first day was permeated with discussions on peer review and AI (though I was in an AI workshop much of the day). But, thanks to the opening keynote a third element – trust – permeated too. However, one of the biggest takeaways for me was the tacit acknowledgment of just how bad things are and how current efforts are not best placed to realistically solve these issues.
I stepped in to moderate a panel on peer review innovations from (the fantastic) Tony Alves which occurred on day 2. There was a panel discussing peer review during the first day that laid out some of the key issues with peer review. However, much of the conversation seemed stuck in well-worn grooves, rehearsing familiar problems without offering genuinely new ways forward. Given how much peer review has been debated, critiqued, and “reimagined” over the past decade, it was disappointing to see how cautious and even outdated the framing still was. This was not helped by one of the panellists not fully addressing many of the questions that got asked. This panel focussed on the issues in peer review – largely that reviewers are increasingly difficult to find, particularly good reviewers. Yet despite the acknowledgement of issues, there seemed a reluctance to try potential solutions.
Our own panel, by comparison, sparked a more candid discussion of potential solutions and surfaced several important tensions. One recurring theme was just how limited awareness remains among researchers of the various initiatives and efforts currently underway around preprint peer review. We also explored why uptake has been so low, with confusion among authors and a lack of meaningful buy-in or collaboration from publishers emerging as key barriers. There are too many “innovations” and new attempts to “improve” publishing – often without the necessary efforts to raise awareness or buy-in. More broadly, it became clear that stakeholders are still not working together in any coherent way; instead, responsibility is often deflected, with blame passed between groups rather than owned collectively. That said, there was a tentative but notable sense of appetite among a small number of participants to try to build a “coalition of the willing”—although more on that a little later.
Speaking of researchers: fatigue was a recurring undercurrent throughout the conference. Researchers are tired (for very good reasons) not just of reviewing, but of navigating an ever-expanding landscape of initiatives, frameworks, and acronyms. For example, PRC may make sense internally, but to many researchers this feels like even more noise. This proliferation is actively damaging open science efforts, not supporting them. Did eLife switching to an exclusive focus on preprints really need a whole new effort and movement? The answer is a certain no. The PRC coalition diverts resources, attention and vital funds away from the very effort it requires – preprints. This also highlights a much bigger problem, one especially prominent in the open science movement; the ever growing disconnect from the average researcher and genuine change. This is partly what destroyed the open access movement and preprinting currently sits on a precipice of its own1.
There’s far too much discussion on what researchers want that is coming from people who are not researchers.
As with all conferences, the real value came in the discussions and one-to-one conversations. A recurring theme was the widely acknowledged need for a stronger coalition across stakeholders; publishers, funders, infrastructure providers, and researchers themselves. Everyone seems to agree that fragmentation is a problem. And yet, there remains enormous resistance to truly coming together in meaningful ways.
Part of the issue, from my view, is leadership, or rather, the lack of it. Reform initiatives (and “coalitions”) in this space have a habit of failing because they are managed like short-term projects, led by programme or project managers, when what’s actually needed is long-term, values-driven leadership2.
Coordination without vision, authenticity and trust doesn’t get us very far.
Ultimately, a lot of these challenges come back to incentives and agendas. Too many individuals and organisations are still primarily focused on pushing their own priorities, even when they nominally support shared goals like openness and transparency. And those are not just traditional publishers, it also includes many open science efforts. Until we get better at aligning those agendas, or at least acknowledging them honestly, progress will continue to be slower and messier than it needs to be.
On a more personal note, after the past few months, the conference was a great reinforcer for much of what I’ve been saying and trying to raise awareness of – in spite of the difficulties this has caused me within the preprint space. This also reminded me that I’m very much at the forefront of the key issues – strategically and in thought-leadership.
This also showed me that maybe I should start looking for roles with publishers – they have some fantastic people working for them already but they’d definitely benefit from my expertise in open science and community/relationship building – just in case any are reading this!
1 I’m in the process of writing a few op-eds on the topic of open science efforts and how they’re losing trust and potentially undermining the wider movement.
2 I’m also writing more on this topic
Rippling Ideas 