PRC Summary Paper 1

Journals and Scientific Productivity: a case study in immunology and microbiology

Ian Rowlands, Centre for Publishing, University College London
René Olivieri, Blackwell Publishing

• Summary Paper
• News Release (12/05/06)

This summary paper has been commissioned by the PRC to open up an important research agenda: what contribution does the scholarly communication system make to the science base, broadly defined, and how can it be improved? This is a critical issue for publishers, librarians and research managers as well as funding agencies, and is especially timely against the backdrop of the arguments being deployed in the cause of reader open access. And to make progress, we need to collect a lot more evidence than is currently available.

Contents

• Executive overview
• Context
• Purpose
• Biomedical scientists and the journals system
• Journals and research productivity
• Policy implications
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgements
• References