| > - Academics (most often publicly funded via grants and university salaries) do the work for free. This means the public is paying the academic to do the work, they're not doing it for free. Grants do come with the expectation of results. > - Finally finally, none of the Authors are ever paid for their work. > The most frustrating part is that Academics themselves are locked into this system by the career prospects conferred by prestigious journals/conferences. Just to be clear this doesn't mean scientists are unpaid, it means they're being paid in career prospects. (Edit: they're also paid in their salaries which include the expectation of work.) (And part of the journals' service is helping academia determine who the best scientists are. That's an important service if done correctly and deserves payment just like any other work.) As with many scientific problems a good problem statement can make all the difference. It sounds like what you want is a different form of payment? It's unclear how much of your problem with the academic system stems from its already nationalized aspects, how much comes from its non-nationalized aspects, and how much comes from it being partially nationalized. Until you can answer that question you might hold off on the "more nationalization" drum. |
> part of the journals' service is helping academia determine who the best scientists are
Could you elaborate? If you're referring to the revered and important process of peer review, isn't that explicitly and exclusively performed by other scientists, paid mostly in public funding?