What do we mean when we say we’re “adding to the scientific literature”?

Abstract: Every undergrad finds out very fast that one of the most important activities of the faculty is publishing papers. Scientific papers are the coin of the realm in everything from health psychology to high-particle physics. No wonder, considering so much is tied to publication: communicating research results to peers, staking a claim on a discovery or a new approach, building personal or lab prestige, and landing a job or advancing in the tenure track. Supposedly, all the previously listed benefits that flow from publishing are the consequence of social conventions which try to incentivize the core business of scientists i.e. producing reliable knowledge about the world. But where do those conventions come from, why were they established and by whom, and do they serve the intended purpose? In my talk, I
will try to pick apart some of our intuitions about why we publish, and what we hope to achieve with it. My argument will be based on two broad strategies: (1) using historical research on scientific journals and the publishing industry and (2) mobilizing and critically discussing some of the disruptive reform proposals for changing the existing journal/database/search engine systems. The idea is to open up space for a critical and reflexive discussion about what publishing means for scientists and see how to
change it for the better.

Bio: Dr Ivan Flis is a Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in South-Eastern Europe at the University of Rijeka, Croatia. He holds a PhD in history and philosophy of science (Utrecht University, Netherlands) and MA and BA in psychology (University of Zagreb, Croatia). His research focuses on the history of research methods in scientific psychology and the philosophical/historical study of the ongoing Open Science reform movement. He has published on the history of 20th century scientific psychology, the replication crisis in psychology, and digital humanities. By working at the intersection of history & philosophy of science with psychology, Ivan hopes to inform and improve psychological
research by insights from the reflexive humanities disciplines critically studying science. In Galway, he’s a visiting fellow at the Moore Institute, working with Dr Chris Noone on topics related to the Open Science reform movement in psychology.