On Open Science
CMC is part of the broader Open Science movement, which aims to (re)introduce more open, horizontal, transparent and community-oriented practices into science.
Open Science is based on several key principles, which are summarised in this UNESCO diagram.
Pillars of Open Science, UNESCO (2021)1
Several principles stem from this positioning:
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Openness and accountability: promoting open, transparent, non-profit and community-led initiatives;
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Diversity and balance: developing diverse publishing ecosystems that include both established players and emerging initiatives, with a specific focus on bibliodiversity issues (languages, disciplines, etc.);
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Sustainability: clear governance and transparency of funding arrangements;
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Collective impact: benefits for open research at the institutional, national or international level and the transition to more economically and ethically viable models.
On Slow Science
CMC also aligns itself with the principles of Slow Science as set out in the Slow Science Manifesto,2 which can be summarised as follows:
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Science is not a business
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Science at the service of society as a whole
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Education and science for all – knowledge as commons
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Accountability in the knowledge society versus profitability in the knowledge economy
This has an impact on our vision of qualitative publication. As the manifesto quotes:
“Academic freedom is seriously in danger not only by privatization of research and education, but also by the logic of management that has taken hold of the university. Output based assessment has lead to an irrational race to publications. The overproduction and very competitive selection systems have decreased the quality of peer review and increased the closed incestuous selection criteria, if not the temptation of fraud. Moreover, these external and blind quantitative selection models tend to take over autonomous, contextualized decision making.”
Therefore, within CMC, we prioritise quality over quantity. Rather than rushing to publish as many papers as possible, we are looking for the highest quality papers through rigorous and transparent peer-review processes.