RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC—Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, in partnership with the Rita Allen Foundation, welcomes Adriana Bankston, PhD in the position of senior fellow, civic science & public policy. In the new role, Bankston will lead a project that examines science policy engagement at the state level and determines the skills, knowledge, and resources required by scientists to successfully influence public policy.

The Civic Science Fellowship program seeks to broaden engagement with science and research to inform policies and develop solutions for societal challenges. Bankston will work closely with Sigma Xi leadership to develop, launch, and manage an online platform to connect current policy players, showcase policy-engaged organizations, and empower individuals from diverse backgrounds to successfully engage and achieve societal change through policy impact at the state level.

Since 2021, Bankston has served as CEO and managing publisher of The Journal of Science Policy and Governance (JSPG), an internationally recognized non-profit organization and peer-reviewed publication dedicated to empowering early career scientists, engineers, and policy professionals in international science policy debate. She is also a biomedical workforce & policy research investigator at the STEM Advocacy Institute (SAi), where she works to cultivate the next generation workforce through science policy. Finally, Bankston is a fellow with Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS), where she also received the inaugural ARIS Emerging Broader Impacts Leader Award in 2022. She holds a PhD in Biochemistry, Cell, and Developmental Biology from Emory University.

"I am honored to work with Sigma Xi in this new role and contribute to enhancing the connection between science and society through public policy,” said Bankston. “Local engagement of scientists with the policymaking process is critical to developing the next generation of leaders in the field and empowering them to improve society through policy change.”

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Bankston to the Sigma Xi team,” said Jamie Vernon, executive director and CEO of Sigma Xi. “Her expertise will advance Sigma Xi’s efforts to identify synergies within the science policy training ecosystem and increase efficiency and capacity for creating evidence-informed policy at the state level.”

As the senior fellow for civic science & public policy at Sigma Xi, Bankston will be connected to a national network of Fellows from diverse backgrounds working on a variety of multidisciplinary projects. The Civic Science Fellowship program led by the Rita Allen Foundation promotes a culture of civic science in which scientists engage with local communities through a variety of projects, including fostering connections with policymakers.

More About Sigma Xi: Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society is the world’s largest multidisciplinary honor society for scientists and engineers. Its mission is to enhance the health of the research enterprise, foster integrity in science and engineering, and promote the public understanding of science for the purpose of improving the human condition. Sigma Xi chapters can be found at colleges and universities, government laboratories, and industry research centers around the world. More than 200 Nobel Prize winners have been members. The Society is based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. www.sigmaxi.org. On Twitter: @SigmaXiSociety.

On March 6, 2023, The Journal of Science Policy & Governance (JSPG) and the National Science Policy Network (NSPN) released Volume 22, Issue 01, the 2022 Standard Winter Issue of the journal.

Published in the standard issue was an Op-Ed, "Publish, Don't Perish: Recommendations for Mitigating Impacts of the New Federal Open Access Policy," authored by Alexander B. Belles, Karen E. Beatty, Claire H. Rodman, and Charles J. Connolly, which included recommendations for stakeholders to address that provides both short-term and long-term solutions to address open access policies. ​

​In response, readers committed to open science submitted a letter to the editor, which JSPG has published in a blog post.

The Authors of the Op-Ed have, in turn, submitted a response to the commentary. That response is provided in full below. 

In response to Peter Suber and Heather Joseph,

We are grateful to be having this conversation regarding the future of academic publishing. With the planned changes described in the Nelson memo, we believe it is important that all researchers be aware of how they will be affected. The Letter to the Editor by Suber and Joseph highlighted two aspects of our original article and provided additional context that we would like to address.

First, our original article implied that the only way to comply with the changes would be to publish in an open access (OA) journal. We apologize for any misunderstanding; the Nelson memo specifies that all federally funded research must be “freely available and publicly accessible by default in agency-designated repositories without any embargo or delay after publication.” While this does not necessarily require publishing in an OA journal, publishing in a traditional subscription journal and being compliant with the new public access rules requires researchers to be informed of the requirements of the funding agency as well as the rules dictated by the journal. For example, traditional journals may allow self-archiving of the accepted manuscript in a repository, but rules may vary from journal to journal. Additionally, multiple versions of the same manuscript in different locations can lead to version control issues, where changes due to copy-editing and post-publication errata would not be reflected in the repository automatically. Publishing OA avoids these pitfalls as the final published version can be archived.

The second point raised was that not all OA journals charge article processing charges (APCs). Suber and Joseph state that 68% of journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) charge no APCs. We recognize that there are many options for publishing OA with no APC. However, 68% does not tell the entire story. The DOAJ gives a seal to journals that meet their best practice criteria. Only ~8% of the almost 20,000 OA journals they track meet these criteria. However, fewer than 3% of OA journals they track follow the best practices and are free, meaning it is exceedingly rare for a journal to adhere to the highest OA standards and be free of charge. Further, Suber and Joseph state that works published OA are overwhelmingly in journals that charge APCs. Many of the most prestigious journals charge heavily to have articles freely available upon publication. We would argue that the sheer number of free OA journals is not important when federally funded researchers are constrained by universities that continue to weigh publication prestige heavily during hiring, promotion, and tenure reviews.

Dissemination of results is vital to science, and journals play an important role. These policy changes are an important step in making scientific research open and equitable. Researchers at all career levels will be affected, so this continued discourse is valuable. We are grateful to JSPG for publishing this work and to the authors of the Letter to the Editor for their thoughtful input.

Signed,
Alexander B. Belles, Pennsylvania State University
Karen E. Beatty, Pennsylvania State University
Claire H. Rodman, Pennsylvania State University
Charles J. Connolly, Pennsylvania State University

On March 6, 2023, The Journal of Science Policy & Governance (JSPG) and the National Science Policy Network (NSPN) released Volume 22, Issue 01, the 2022 Standard Winter Issue of the journal.

The 2022 standard winter issue addressed topics that included open science, climate literacy, workforce development for careers in STEM, data transparency, knowledge infrastructure, space policy, social media, and governmental programs to better evaluate research funding outcomes. 

The Op-Ed, "Publish, Don't Perish: Recommendations for Mitigating Impacts of the New Federal Open Access Policy," authored by Alexander B. Belles, Karen E. Beatty, Claire H. Rodman, and Charles J. Connolly, included recommendations for stakeholders to address that provides both short-term and long-term solutions to address open access policies. ​

​In response, readers committed to open science submitted a letter to the editor. The response to the published Op-Ed is provided in full below. 

To the editor,
​
While it calls welcome attention to an important new policy development in access to publicly-funded research, the March 6 article by Rodman et al. leaves a few false impressions about the 2022 Nelson memo from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). 

The authors support open access (OA) and want to facilitate grantee compliance with the forthcoming federal OA policies. So do we. But their analysis is undermined by two false assumptions. First, they assume that the only way for grantee-authors to comply with the new policies is to publish in OA journals. Second, they assume that all or most OA journals levy article processing charges (APCs). Building on these two assumptions, they focus their recommendations on ways to raise money to pay APCs. 

However, the Nelson memo is explicit in §3.a that agency policies should ensure “that all peer-reviewed scholarly publications authored or coauthored by individuals or institutions resulting from federally funded research are made freely available and publicly accessible by default in agency-designated repositories.” 

Grantees can fully comply with the policies by depositing the right version of their work in the right repository. That is entirely compatible with publishing in OA journals. But depositing in the right repository is necessary, and publishing in an OA journal is not.  

It’s possible that some agencies will create a second compliance channel for those who do publish in OA journals. But it’s too early to say. In any case, depositing in the right repository will suffice, and as far as we know today publishing in OA journals will not suffice. And even if some agencies will count publishing in OA journals as compliance, grantee-authors may still comply by depositing in a repository without paying an APC. 

The authors are right to point out that researchers, especially those early in their careers, are in a difficult position given the pressure to “publish or perish” in certain journals. The Nelson Memo provides universities with a new opportunity to re-think those pressures, focusing more on the research itself, and its quality and impact, than on the journal in which it was published.

Apart from charging no APCs, the repository method of compliance has other advantages for authors and addresses this concern. It preserves author freedom to submit new work to the journals of their choice, for example OA or non-OA journals. This is especially important for early-career researchers, who often face pressure to publish in non-OA journals. The repository method of compliance allows them to satisfy their funder and their promotion-and-tenure committee at the same time.

It has been well-known for more than 15 years that the majority of peer-reviewed OA journals do not charge APCs, even if the majority of articles in OA journals are currently published in the APC-based variety. Using data from today (March 28, 2023), the Directory of Open Access Journals lists 19,150 peer-reviewed OA journals, 68% of which charge no APCs. There is a wide variety of models in use to support OA journal publishing that do not require author-side fees, but rather draw on individual and collective funding from libraries, research institutions, and funders and which provide more equitable and sustainable operating models. 

The most important message for grantee-authors is that paying an APC is not necessary to comply with the new federal OA policies. If a particular journal charges an APC to publish an author’s federally funded research, authors should not draw the wrong conclusion. The fee is not to comply with the federal funder policy; it is to publish in that particular journal. There is no charge for compliance with the federal funder policies.

Signed,
Peter Suber, Senior Advisor on Open Access, Harvard Library
Heather Joseph, Executive Director, SPARC

Students, post-doctoral researchers, policy fellows, early career researchers and young professionals from around the world are invited to submit op-eds, policy position papers and other articles addressing foreign policy and national security challenges. These include articles addressing both the direct impact of new technologies -- such as information technology and biotechnology -- on national defense and the indirect impact of technology-driven changes that could increase or decrease the potential for conflict. Submission deadline: April 30, 2023. 

This Special Issue is supported in-kind by outreach partners from the American Physical Society Forum on Early Career Scientists (APS FECS) and the Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University.

“Rapid advances in information technology, biology, energy technologies, and many other areas have the potential to create new areas of conflict, and new solutions to global problems.” said Henry Kelly, Past Chair of the APS Forum on Physics and Society. “These require a fresh approach to a range of domestic and international policies including national security and intelligence policies, foreign policy, economic policy and approaches to international development. A clear understanding of the new threats and opportunities created by scientific and technical advances are an essential part of the solution.”     

“Topics relevant to science, technology and global security are at the forefront of the policy landscape internationally,” said Adriana Bankston, JSPG CEO and Managing Publisher. “JSPG is thrilled to partner with the APS Forum on Physics and Society on this call for papers to showcase contributions of the next generation to this special issue around national security and foreign policy topics.”

In addition to publishing in the special issue, accepted papers will be entered into a policy paper competition, where a committee of experts in the science policy-security interface will select the top three articles. First, second and third place article winners will have the opportunity to present published work at events hosted by the APS Forum on Physics and Society.

Leading up to the submission deadline, JSPG and APS FPS will organize a series of training sessions to provide prospective authors with opportunities to practice policy writing, and to inspire and empower them with expert perspectives on science-policy communication to inform their submissions to the Special Issue.

APS is a sponsor and is not responsible for the content of the special issue. 

About JSPG
The Journal of Science Policy & Governance (JSPG) is an international, open access peer-reviewed publication managed by and for students, policy fellows, and young scholars in science, technology, and innovation policy. JSPG publishes high-quality articles covering the widest range of topics in formats that are accessible to policymakers. Since 2011, JSPG has served as a vehicle for students and early career researchers to bolster their research and writing credentials in science policy. Visit sciencepolicyjournal.org and follow on Twitter @SciPolJournal to learn more. 

About APS FPS
The American Physical Society’s Forum on Physics and Society (FPS) is a forum of the American Physical Society, organized in 1971 to address issues related to the interface of physics and society as a whole. Founded in the late 1960s, FPS has been active in exploring policy issues such as nuclear weapons and nonproliferation, autonomous weapons, environmental challenges, and cybersecurity. It has also been active in exploring ways to encourage equity and inclusion in the physics community. Visit  https://engage.aps.org/fps/home to learn more.

About APS FECS
The APS Forum for Early Career Scientists (FECS) was established in 2016 to enhance APS's ability to meet the needs of early career scientists and promote career path development, as well as foster scientific communication and cooperation between early career scientists working in different fields all over the world. FECS is focused on serving scientists working in the early stages of their careers, especially recent graduates, postdocs, and junior faculty, but welcomes membership from all career stages. Visit https://engage.aps.org/fecs/home to learn more.

About the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University
George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government prepares undergraduate and graduate students to be leaders and managers who solve problems and advance the public good in all sectors and levels of government—in the United States and throughout the world. Located where policy happens—just 3 miles from the Pentagon, 4 miles from the White House, and 6 miles from the U.S. Capitol Building—students are connected to jobs, internships, networking, and experiences that can only be found in the Washington, D.C., area. Visit see: https://schar.gmu.edu and follow on Twitter @ScharSchool to learn more. ​

​We are proud to introduce our Ambassador Spotlight Series! Over the next few months, we will highlight each team of our inaugural JSPG ambassadors, starting with our Outreach team of ambassadors: Leila Chiddick, undergraduate at UCLA, and Dan Bui, an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge.

Q: What brought you to JSPG?
​
LC: My major is Global Studies, but also looking into minoring in Public Health and Disability studies. I found my interest in science policy last year through UCLA Science Policy group. From there I’m still learning about science policy, and the difference between more the legal side of science and healthcare law. So that's where my interest in JSPG began and where my educational path is leaning right now.

DB: I spent a few months working with an NGO in Berlin working on digital technologies for healthcare access in rural Madagascar, during which I watched the process of academic research using the NGO’s findings from their trials. This research made me think about the limited opportunities for young scientists and policy professionals to publicize their research and I came to the JSPG from my enthusiasm about its ethos of the democratization of publication opportunities.
 
Q: What is your group’s current project? How do each of you work within your group?

DB: We work in outreach and our main goal is to raise awareness of JSPG, whether that be by encouraging fellowships and science policy groups to list JSPG on their resources pages on their websites or getting in touch with student societies and university faculties directly. Coming from the UK, I’m much more familiar with British and European university systems and the professional opportunities students here look for, so that’s where I’m concentrating my outreach work.
 
LC: Dan is in the UK and I'm in California, so we have weekly meetings with our advisor, and so those are separate between the two of us and because of that, a lot of our work is separate. But when we create projects or different panels. We'll come together, and we'll all attend if we can, and support each other. For current projects, we just had a panel for Johns Hopkins science policy group for their undergrads and graduate students.  I've been talking to a lot of undergraduate universities in the US so that they can provide an even better perspective for the students that attend these panels as well. We want to share who JSPG is, what this Ambassador program is, so they can do it in the future if they'd like to, and what science policy is. 
 
Q: What are some of the skills you have learned as part of your internship so far? How do you think you might apply these skills in a future role in outreach or science policy?
 
LC: I think that something I’ll take away is just learning how to communicate with people in different ways, based on who I’m talking to, whether it's students, professors, and even trying to speak and connect with people over platforms.

DB: Being persistent, finding the right people to contact, and not being afraid to chase people up (in a polite way!) My experience so far has really helped me to be familiar with what kind of organizations are interested in the JSPG’s mission so I can target outreach efforts more effectively. 
 
Q: How do you feel your group’s project will shape the future of outreach at JSPG?

DB: I’m reaching out to student societies in the UK, particularly at the University of Cambridge where I’m based. Hopefully there’ll be more interest in the JSPG on this side of the Atlantic in future and bring more submissions as well. 

LC: Following up with groups we communicated with and worked with in the past as new members come through these organizations, especially universities. We still want to connect even if we’ve work with them in the past to keep those connections strong.  
 
Q: What has been the most exciting task you’ve encountered as a group so far?

LC: For me, I’m working with a group called Science Rising focuses on trying to increase voter
registration and people getting out to vote, especially undergraduate students and younger people who are in STEM. It’s interesting to see how they're doing that and exciting to work with people who are in other areas of science policy

DB: Since a lot of our work has been individual instead of as a group, rather than an exciting task, when you get a reply from an organization that’s happy to spread the word about JSPG, it’s really uplifting.

The Ambassador Spotlight Series is written and developed by the Communications and Public Affairs Ambassadors. 

About the authors
Katherine (Kate) Andersh is a PhD candidate in Neuroscience at the University of Rochester. She previously received her BS in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science from the University of Arizona in 2017 with a minor in Psychology. Her current research is focused on the role of inflammation in vision loss and cell death in glaucoma, one of the leading causes of blindness in the world. She is a former Science Communication Training Fellow with the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). With this fellowship, she was able to communicate with both local and national legislators advocating for the importance of scientific funding as well as equity and inclusion efforts in STEM within the Rochester community. In addition, she has worked with many groups within her institution, including her time as vice president of the Alliance for Diversity in Science and Engineering, to advocate for the needs of underrepresented trainees and participate in larger university initiatives to support equity and inclusion. She is interested in pursuing a career in science policy and continuing to advocate for underrepresented voices in STEM and within the community.

Hannah LeBlanc is a PhD student in Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on microbial RNA biology and regulation of gene expression in bacteria. They graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a B.A. in Biochemistry, where she researched bacterial RNA-protein interactions. Hannah serves as an Associate Editor at the MIT Science Policy Review, and is interested in policy and advocacy around healthcare access and housing. Outside of science, they enjoy rowing, weightlifting, and playing hockey.

Washington, DC (December 12, 2022) – The Journal of Science Policy & Governance (JSPG), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY) are pleased to release Volume 21, Issue 02, of the journal, the Special Topic Issue on Open Science Polices as an Accelerator for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

“Early-career researchers and youth play an important role in driving the cultural shift towards open science, while carefully navigating the impact of evolving open science policies. It is, therefore, crucial to encourage and empower young researchers to participate in decision-making that can shape the future of science and ensure that their voices are heard by other decision-makers. I hope that this special issue can amplify the voice of those young researchers who have recognized that open science policies can serve as an accelerator for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals," Ms. Shamila Nair-Bedouelle, Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences, UNESCO. 

In the cover memo, Ms. Shamila Nair-Bedouelle noted that the open science movement has been driven by researchers who want to share, collaborate and engage with other researchers and with society, highlighted the recommendations put forth in the issue articles by early-career authors, and acknowledged members of the Major Group for Children and Youth and of the Global Young Academy (Open Science Working Group) for their contributions to the issue. 

“We are very proud of the contributing articles that encourage the use of open science policies as a catalyst to achieve the goal of creating a more equitable global society. The ideas presented in the articles will help shape the future of global scientific practices, cast light on the need for increased access to scientific knowledge, and push for the attainment of the sustainable development goals. Early-career scientists and engineers can have a meaningful role in the creation of innovative open science policies and their implementation. It is crucial to act on this now, seeing the clear need for increased sharing of scientific knowledge and collaboration across the globe,” Ona Ambrozaite and Barbara Del Castello, Co-Platform Coordinators, Science-Policy Interface, Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY). 

The Special Topics Issue competition, judged by an external review committee, aims to provide winning authors of the top 3 publications with opportunities to present in UNESCO and MGCY events on open science. Information on the competition winners will be released at a later date. 

“The breadth of articles in this issue showcase the innovative ideas from the next generation in transforming both the practice of open science and applying principles of open science to address important societal problems,” said Adriana Bankston, JSPG CEO & Managing Publisher. “JSPG is proud to partner with UNESCO and MGCY on this special issue and we look forward to future collaborations showcasing early-career views in science policy.”

This Special Issue is supported in-kind by outreach partners from the Global Young Academy Open Science Working Group.