Bletchley Park needs your money...

Mathematicians are very proud of the fact that a group of mathematicians, including Alan Turing, were responsible for breaking Nazi secret codes during World War 2. It has been claimed that their work shortened the war by at least two years. The code breakers worked in a country house, Bletchley Park, and the huts that they used have been decaying for years. When I visited the house in the late 90s the huts were looking rather shabby; what must they look like now? Well, the Heritage Lottery Fund has allocated 4.6 million pounds for the regeneration of Bletchley Park to restore the huts and create a visitor centre and exhibition. Good news to cheer! However… There is a catch. Bletchley Park has to raise 1.7 million to secure this money. To read more and to donate go to...

The scandal of academic journal profits...

[I thought I had posted this last Monday! Obviously I forgot to hit the right button.] The scandal of research journal profits seems to be gaining visibility in the world outside academia with articles in the press and a government working group. The proposed solutions seem to miss an important point which I’ll come to later. First, what is the problem? Well, governments throughout the world pay researchers in universities to do fundamental research. This can take numerous forms, either the money is paid to the university in general money or to specific researchers to do specific research via bodies such as EPSRC. Once the research is done and new results have been found, the researchers put these in a paper and send it to a journal. The editor of the journal sends the paper to an anonymous referee who assesses the paper (are the results new? Are they worthy of publication? and so on). If accepted, the paper is published in the journal. Researchers who want to read the paper can do so by consulting a copy from their university library (online or in hard copy). The problem becomes apparent when you follow the money. The tax payers give money to the researcher. The researcher gives the results to a company to publish. The editor and the referees are not paid to edit and referee – generally academics work for free on those. The libraries get money from the taxpayers to buy the journal (often at a very high price). So what is happening is that tax payer ends up paying twice for the same research. We researchers do the research, give it away and then buy it back. Obviously something is wrong here. This is compounded by the fact that the publishing...