Phase Space Invaders (ψ)

Episode 24 - Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz [Nature Communications]: The job of a full-time editor, transparency and other novelties in publishing, and coaching the review process

• Miłosz Wieczór • Season 3 • Episode 24

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In episode 24, Katarzyna talks about the everyday concerns and common threads of an editor's job, from continuously learning about the rapid developments in the field to navigating the review process. She shares some inside stories about the experimental features that journals tinker with these days, and it's good to know that many interesting ideas are being tested out there in the wild. We then discuss a bit about the evolution of the publishing process, including its perception among us research scientists. We largely leave the questions of profits and finance out of the conversation, so this is purely a conversation between two science aficionados who care deeply about the scientific enterprise being transparent, just, open to novelty and focused on quality evidence.

Milosz:

Welcome to Phase space invaders! In this last episode of the year 2024, incidentally also episode number 24, we're wrapping up season three with a special guest. Today I'm talking to Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz Who is a senior editor at nature communications, the journal, and previously did editorial work for nature, biotechnology and NSMB nature of structural and molecular biology she did her PhD working on epigenetics and the postdoc. And now as an editor, she specializes in submission, spanning structural biology, biophysics, protein folding, molecular biology of chromatin, which I've thought makes her an excellent fit for this podcast. Katarzyna spent her entire scientific and professional career in New York, but she's Polish, and as we alluded to in the conversation, that explains how we started talking to each other at a recent conference. And since the last two episodes Featured guests who have editorial experience in different directions. So Lucy Delamotte exploring alternative publishing models and Zoe Cornea being an academic editor, I thought it's fair to complete this triad by talking to a full time editor. So Katarzyna shares with us the everyday concerns and common threads of an editor's job, from continuously learning about the rapid developments in the field to navigating the review process. When she says they do a lot of reading, it's not to be taken lightly. As we spoke just before the winter holidays, Katarzyna had 52 manuscripts at different stages in the pipeline, just to give you some context. She shares some inside stories about the experimental features that journals tinker with these days. And it's good to know that many interesting ideas are being tested out there in the wild. We then discuss a bit about the evolution of the publishing process, including its perception among us research scientists we largely leave the questions of profits and finance out of the conversation because that might be more appropriate On an executive level. So this is purely a conversation between two science aficionados who care deeply about the scientific enterprise being transparent, just, open to novelty and focused on quality evidence. Hope you like the episode. So Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz, welcome to the podcast.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Hello, thank you for having me here

Milosz:

so Katarzyna, we recently had two discussions that touch upon publishing and editorial work, including a comment that these days nature journal editors became the most sought after contacts at scientific conferences. And I smiled internally at that moment because it's true that we actually met recently at the conference and that it was indeed very interesting to Hear firsthand, you know, how journals editors think what they found interesting and so on. But I thought this is something everyone should be able to hear out because I think Part of that is just anxiety to understand the editorial process that might, you know, feel like a Greek oracle especially to early career researchers So can you give us some insight into, you know, the day to day life of a professional editor and what are the key factors, for example, you look at in making early editorial decisions?

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Of course, yes, I know often appear like these kinds of black boxes where you send your manuscript and you hope to have a publication at the end and people really, really don't know, What happens in between the manuscript and the published paper. So we are always very happy to share our insight and to just simply talk about what we do. we read a lot of manuscripts. This is true. And this is a huge part of the job, of course. but, where do I begin? So maybe I will just, describe what a professional editor at a journal like Nature Communications or other nature branded journals does.

Milosz:

just to mention that this is a full time job, right? You're not a research scientist. You just dedicate all your professional time to

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

to

Milosz:

an editor.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

to the PhD level, many, many, uh, editors, especially those who have been doing this for a longer time, also have a postdoctoral experience. Uh, some even ventured to be a PI, like an early career, principal investigators, and then they decided academia was not really for them, but they still wanted to stay close to science. So we are all, people who have been in the lab. We are all people who, done experiments. We all have our own papers written and already published in the past. So we have been through the process of science and through the process of publishing science ourselves. Now, we are also all super excited about science. You know, people who don't deeply care about science and science communications don't do this job. It is mainly reading and thinking about other people's results. So only people who really care about this do this job. I think this is something that is. Very often underappreciated that we really do care about science and we find it a truly worthwhile human endeavor Something that is really worth doing and thinking about and doing as well as possible this is one thing now we do at a journal like nature Branded journals is we read them the manuscripts that are submitted to the journal within our expertise as an editor We quickly develop expertise that is somewhat broader than what you would usually see in a researcher. it is true that we often read manuscripts in the fields in which we don't have the formal training or like lab experience, but we do read a lot about them. So we do learn a lot on the job as well. Uh, we read these and we read them, to decide which of them will fit well in the journal and thus will be sent out to formal peer review and everything goes well, eventually published in the journal, that we are an editor for. So, this is another common misconception that I am very happy to disprove is that, you know, we

Milosz:

Namely.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

are after like, when we read a manuscript, we really just look for papers that will be a good fit for the journal

Milosz:

Mm-hmm

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

That we are a part of. And that means something else for every journal. the more, you know, the more, I want to say prestigious, but is prestige really? The more

Milosz:

Well,

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

the broader the audience of the journal, the more important is that the findings are interesting to a very, very broad audience. So not just the people who work on this particular

Milosz:

Right

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

or protein, not just the people who use this particular technique that is used in the paper, but rather papers that will be really of very, very broad interests to scientists that work on topics

Milosz:

is

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

very different than the manuscript or future paper itself. So this will be something that with the broader, the broadest audience look for. Whereas someone who is an editor for a more specialized journal, Just looks for manuscripts for results that are of interest to a narrower audience. And that's it. We are not, you know, looking for flaws. We are not looking to come and get someone and catch them. making a true broad of a conclusion or making a mistake or omitting a control. Of course, all these things are important later on, the controls and using the proper techniques and not overstating your conclusions. but this comes later. The very first things that we look for is just interest, To the journal's intended audience and how well the work will well will fit in there.

Milosz:

Right. So it makes sense that there is a science that makes it to the textbooks. Right. And decides that becomes a very deep rabbit hole for particular subfields.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

you know, uh,

Milosz:

Mm-hmm

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

there is also this question. Sometimes, interesting thing is something that is completely new that introduces a completely new concept. a true. Novel discovery. But sometimes the thing that is interesting is an answer to a very old question that everyone in the field had, and that was bugging everyone who worked on a particular topic. It's not really new and maybe it's not even, you know, a huge discovery, but it is something that was not known for a very, very long time. And finally is, a new technique or a new approach, or like. a different discovery made a little earlier allows to answer this longstanding question. And then it is also interesting, even though it is maybe not very new, it might not generate that many new concept or new ideas, but because it is of interest because everyone was thinking about it, learning about it in their classes. This will be of interest. So we also try to look at what is interesting from different perspective.

Milosz:

You get to be among the first people to hear about big discoveries. So that might be exciting.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

This is very, very

Milosz:

It also begs the question, if I might, if I might, yeah, how is it hard to deal with novelty in the sense that if something comes up that's so new that nobody's really an expert, you know, how, how does a journal deal with such a case? Thanks.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

So novelty is something, is important, of course. Science is all about finding new things and learning new things. we try to be very open minded. So, We try to, give every new idea a chance. And if we see, we read a lot, and we also, you know, we read the manuscripts, papers that are published elsewhere, not in our own journals, because we need to stay on top of the literature. We also read, reviewers reports, and we read authors responses. to these reports very carefully. and we also, as you know, and mentioned already, we also go to conferences and talk to researchers at every different levels of their careers. So we really have insight into what is going on, what is interesting to people, what others are publishing. as you mentioned, we see, research being, um, that is done, but not yet published. So we are often the first people outside of the lab who actually have access to the new results. and we do, at least within one publisher, we do share these results a little bit, you know, it all stays. confidential, but as editors, within one journal, we know editors who handle similar topics for other journals of the same publisher. So we often discuss the science that is being done. And this helps us to I think helps us appreciate and be more open to new ideas because we often see how these ideas are, how there is traction, how the field is not open to some new concepts and then how it changes and how people you know, adopt the new approaches or the new concepts or the new, paradigms sometimes.

Milosz:

Do you have any such example from your own practice where you can remember that something became a new paradigm, so to say, and you kind of oversaw the change?

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

it will be, it

Milosz:

If nothing comes to mind, then easy.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

I, you know, I could, I could answer just from, um, more of a professional technical example and not a scientific one. Also not to single out any particular, field of

Milosz:

okay. Uh

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

you know, um, when I was starting, work as an editor, that was eight years ago, we did, we did not use to publish the reviewers reports or the entire, Peer review process was

Milosz:

huh, uh huh, uh huh.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

the outers and the reviewers could see. but now at nature communications, we publish all of the documents that are generated throughout the peer review process. So both the reviewers reports and the outers responses. and, initially it felt like this whole conversation happening between the authors and the reviewers that it's private. And this is not for the public eyes. but actually we editors learn a lot from these conversations, so to say. And they are often extremely interesting. Oftentimes we felt that it is a shame that that others cannot read what happens. Oftentimes there is like, uh, just tangential topics being discussed and that become new projects, for either the authors or the referees lab. And, they are really scientific conversations happening. Uh, we now publish documents and they are public. They are, uh, anyone can access them. and it is normal and everyone

Milosz:

Yeah.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

and accepts that. uh,

Milosz:

Do you think,

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

I can give. Like, easily, it

Milosz:

do you think it improved, the quality of reviews or the interactions maybe, or I don't know, the behaviors or because of course people might wonder how much nasty reviews do editors see and like,

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

We

Milosz:

is it frustrating sometimes the quality of comments or,

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

yes.

Milosz:

Yes. Yes.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

yes, we still sometimes see, I guess some people are just very direct and very straightforward in how they formulate their thoughts. obviously, sometimes we see something that might be, Maybe be borderline rude. We try in these situations to actually contact the referee and ask them, the outers, if it's the outers who are very dismissive and, unprofessional in their response towards the referee, we try to contact the, so to speak, offending side and, and maybe steer them towards, toning down the harshest expressions. So we try to help that, but we also, you know, we, we are not policing anyone. we, don't want to be sensors. We. like the researchers to keep their voice. So one thing which we, which is also part of the job is actually, trying to coach, to kind of even calm down the authors on their viewers who will become very agitated and very, you know, when they feel very strongly in one way or

Milosz:

Yeah, coaching is a great word for that,

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

our whole days. This is, you know, all I do eight hours a day, often more. I read these interactions, and I see them, often. So I know that simply some people are very direct in how they address, how they formulate their thoughts. and we try to coach the other side to only look at the scientific content of the, the report or the response and not get offended or not second guess what this person had in mind. What did they think? Maybe they thought that maybe, no, just we, you know, one part of our job is to just focus On the remarks that pertain to science and we try to focus to coach the people out of second guessing what who was thinking, how they were thinking.

Milosz:

see. So while we add this question of changing the process of review, for example, right? I wanted to ask how much are, let's say legacy journals engaged with this whole movement of modern or new, publishing models, right? Like things that come out of. How it's like a life or

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Yeah,

Milosz:

other communities that are out there,

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

yeah.

Milosz:

how, let's say, nature communications engages with this new ideas.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Well, you know, of course, this is our bread and butter. This is what we do. So we stay on top of the trends. What we try to do is to listen to our communities. We really are a service business. We offer a service where we connect the authors with the referees. We, Like we already talked, coach chop around the interaction in between them with the hope to improve the manuscript and have better paper at the end of the process and then we offer publication. All that is useless if we don't meet our communities, if we don't meet the needs of authors and the needs of our referees as well, and the needs of the scientific community at large. So, both Springer Nature as a, as an, entire company and Nature Communications as a particular journal. And I'm sure this is also true of all the other publishers out there. stay up to date with what is going on. We, uh, follow closely. the outcomes of all the different, and all the different pilot processes that are tested elsewhere. We also start many of these ourselves and we simply try to answer the needs of the community. I already mentioned, you know, one big thing is, open access and, uh, That is obviously, there is more and more, push to publish science open access to make it available to the public that funds a lot of science that is being published, that is being made. we, of course, answer to that. We, start new open access publications, but even the legacy journals that used to be subscription only, and were only accessible to people with subscriptions or institutions through institutions with subscriptions, they now offer open access, option to, to the outers and, and it's the outer decision whether they, publish within the legacy subscription model or whether they choose an open access model. We also, support the transparency follow closely communities need. So whenever someone wants to disclose their name, we do allow that, be it a reviewer or the author. we offer option to disclose their names. If they choose to still remain anonymous, we also allow that. so, um, yeah, that's this

Milosz:

Yes. Yeah, you also before you mentioned this program to recognize early career reviewers. Yes,

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

this

Milosz:

that's an interesting development.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

When we've talked, uh, before we started the recording, I mentioned that sometimes, we as publishers are in a position to recognize that there is need for something new that, that maybe is not encountered that often on, from the other side, from the side that we're on. Viewpoint of the researcher and out or reviewer. So I was We were talking about the communications early career researcher program for reviewers where we an option for very early career researchers graduate students and other students or maybe postdoctoral fellows to be formally a part of peer review to formally recognized as reviewers and in some cases if they choose so To even have them named on a published paper as a reviewer of the given paper. this is something that happens in science very often as trainees are often Asked by their mentors to participate in peer review When I was still a student, there was no options to be recognized as a reviewer of a paper, even if I did read a paper together with my PI. Now we do have a formal program recognize that. and, uh, actually when we started this, this was, I think, two years ago, we started to do this in a very, in a very, systematic, organized and formal manner. Um, the uptake was amazing. Oftentimes, you know, I, as an editor, I invite three reviewers and all of them also include a trainee. And each of these trainees is formally recognized as a reviewer of the paper. So, this is something where we, as a publisher, came out With initiative where we saw need to, to be more transparent about this. and it works and it has been met with a very warm welcome. from our viewers.

Milosz:

Yeah, I can imagine. And It's a really important part of the scientific training that's often overlooked, right? It's how to review a paper. Nobody teaches that formally.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Yeah, it's true.

Milosz:

I like the conclusion that again came out of the previous conversations. And I want to put it out there that, you know, as our field will come up with solutions to maybe publishing formats or to, Ways to manage or evaluate publications. As you say, companies will adapt. Governments will adapt. It's actually a question of good ideas being out there and being robust enough and mature enough for the communities to pick up.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Yes. And also, there is always need for funding. So there always needs to be space for testing these ideas oftentimes. and this is also something that we, uh, as a publisher see often we, uh, have like programs where we just test out a possibility and then only we see what are the problems with this and whether it works out or not. Um, so, in general, we need open mindedness and, we need, um, Everyone to be engaged and to test out this different approaches, to find

Milosz:

I see.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

And I'm sure that, you know, there will be, there will probably never be a one size fits all. So there will be a need for different approaches and, and different,

Milosz:

Yeah, definitely. any interesting examples of those pilot programs that you've found? worthwhile or potentially revolutionary. Just if you, if you have something in mind, uh, right.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Submit a paper to more than one journal within a portfolio. So that makes the process easier for the authors as, again, many publishers will have an entire portfolio of journals with different intended audiences from the most prestigious, the most shiny journals that aim to publish findings, which are of interest to a very, very broad audience, scientific community at large, to those more focused where the audience is really just members of a particular field. And, uh, publishers now, offer an option where the authors can submit their paper and it goes throughout the system. they can indicate which of the journals they would be interested Sometimes it is decided kind of for them. So, You choose a package, and then the editors from all the different journals, assess the paper and, well, the manuscript that is submitted, and the decision is made where the manuscript would be the best fit, because sometimes it is not that obvious. So one thing which I, um, didn't mention initially, a part of our job is to see a potential of a manuscript. And something that we very often see is, um, how the manuscript changes and develops in the peer review process. uh, you know, the, there is an input from the reviewers and sometimes they are, set of another pair of error of eyes, another brain that comes at the problem that comes to the project and they have their own ideas and oftentimes their input really develops the projects even further. So a manuscript that comes to to a publisher have a great idea, but maybe it is not yet that great that that develops the experimental support that is already in the manuscript is not yet solid enough to publish a manuscript like this in a broader scope journal, but maybe in a more focused one. But we don't know yet if the peer review process will not develop the, the, the manuscript further. So, so here having this, possibility to submit to a publisher, but not immediately deciding which of the journals would publish the, the work is great um.

Milosz:

So it's, it's not just an upfront decision that happens is it's the whole process takes,

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Well,

Milosz:

develops in the context of this possibility. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see. That's interesting. I think that's. I gotta say,

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

these are things which are tested in a pilot because, it might seem initially we all come in with, with our editorial experiences and, and we may think that it is possible to decide, but then in the process of actually making it, things come out that no one ever expected. So this is one type of, um, uh, or at other, uh, at other publishing houses, they are already established protocols to deal with, with that kind of approach where the,

Milosz:

yeah, maybe, maybe we could evolve one day into this kind of free market of papers where people just publish their preprints and then journals contact the authors for, you know, saying, Oh, this fits our scope, the inverting this, uh, this whole scheme. But of course, that would be a lot of, a lot of editorial work on top of what you're already doing.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

There is so much great science out there being, you know, being done and being written up and, and published and, finding a great, but that be a lot of work. And

Milosz:

I can imagine.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Then I can also see how some, uh, some papers would, you know, some authors would, uh, hear from very many editors. And, uh, that would also create a problem for them, like where to send, where to submit the manuscript.

Milosz:

Well, that's a nice problem to have from an author's perspective.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

but yes, for sure. But these are things which we would need to test, right? So, um,

Milosz:

absolutely. I mean, it's good to know that this is happening behind the scenes and that there are people thinking about it.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

of course.

Milosz:

And that leads me to the next question, which was, you know, how those tools of an editor, I'm thinking more of technical tools, change over time. Is it still just like getting a PDF and reading it and making a decision in your head, or is there. A whole suite of tools that you have that maybe, I don't know, compare it to something like C, plagiarism, similarities, context, and so on.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Yes, we use tools, of course. And, especially right now with the AI and, large, language models, there is more and more tools. So obviously, uh, we use them. There is for a long time, we already had tools for very, simple tasks like, plagiarism checks. This is something relatively easy, and this is something that has been in place. eight years ago when I started my career as an editor. is quite easy we have tools, whole plethora of tools and they become more and more sophisticated to help to assist finding reviewers. uh, so that we don't go always to the same people so that we engage the large, the entire scientific community and not just, uh, select few most famous experts in the field which would create a problem of itself, right? So finding active researchers, there are tools that help us find active researchers. Who could be potential reviewers for, for a selected manuscript, so that happens. There is, you know, uh, tools that help assess the image integrity. this is an ongoing problem where, image manipulations, duplications and so on happen, unfortunately. So there, so we do have tools. that assist with that. And these tools become better and better. now when it comes to content, turns out it is very difficult to have a machine do an editor's job, because ultimately, you know, we're trying to do is to estimate the interest of the scientific community of people. What we try to do is to estimate how interesting a manuscript a finding will be to other people. And it seems that people are better at estimating what other people will think. So this is, uh, uh, this

Milosz:

Still one thing that we can be good at. Do you think it's, you got this sense that it is, sixth sense of, oh, this paper is going to really resonate with the community?

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

I mean,

Milosz:

Oh, this is what everyone was waiting for. I see. I see.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

a lot of, we read a lot, so we do have, we do develop. the sixth sense, as you say, but we are also very humble. none of us has a crystal ball that shows us the future. We still, there are still surprises where we think something isn't interesting, but it becomes interesting. Or we think that something is very interesting and somehow it doesn't bite and, and others are not as excited, uh, about a particular study as we thought they would be So we remain humble and we are aware that we don't know everything, but We do know a lot. We really, you know, read across many disciplines. We talk to other editors, we talk to researchers. I cannot overestimate how much a person learns from careful reading of reviewer reports and authors responses and how much of scientific exchange, scientific knowledge exchange is happening there. And we are there, we are free to see this. It's our job to know what's happening in there. So, so this allows to develop, sensitivity to new topics, things that are new, up and coming, that are maybe not yet out there, but we kind of know that they will be cool very soon and important but we make, we,

Milosz:

this whole,

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

you know, again, it's not a hundred percent, um, a hundred

Milosz:

no, of course.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

accuracy. And this seems for now. That the machines cannot do that. are very good at summarizing you know, at, at making a longer text into a shorter abstract or summary that they can do. But like kind of connecting ideas, which are out there in different places, this is. It's still human space.

Milosz:

Right. This feels like a task of finding gaps in something that should be a graph of knowledge, right? so like, it feels like it's something that's formalizable, but I also understand how it's so hard to do on a text level. rather than maybe some, high level.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Yeah.

Milosz:

And then there's this whole, let's say mythology of science, right? That there are all those classical papers that were rejected at some point. These stories from, I don't know, the thirties or the fifties where someone submitted their revolutionary paper and it was rejected five times before someone published it. And

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

it still

Milosz:

so, I

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

to help us with selection of these most interesting We look back at things that were submitted to the journal, but were not published. Well, we obviously also look at how the things that we publish fare and whether they whether the papers are cited. And citations is a shortcut, number of citations. where and who cites the paper is for us, a way to estimate how interesting the paper is, right? So, uh, we are not chasing numbers here. We are just trying understand who reads the papers, and which topics Gather the most, interest, the most excited, how many people are excited about the science that they

Milosz:

see.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

And the same way we look at papers which we did reject, we try to find them elsewhere. This is not always possible because papers really do change during peer review. The titles change routinely, but, the abstract and sometimes even conclusions can change and that, that

Milosz:

course. Mm hmm.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

where you find the referee and there is a good between the authors and the referees. So new experiments are being made and the conclusions are modified. This is really how it should be. you know, this is very, very satisfying. So sometimes it's difficult to find the paper that was rejected and later published because it changed. But when we can see them, also look at how they do and whether we've made a right call on the paper.

Milosz:

hmm.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

course,

Milosz:

I can imagine.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

sometimes it happens where we let something go and, it gathers a lot of interest elsewhere. we learn from

Milosz:

I see. Did preprints make it easier for you? Like, is there a contribution from the preprints databases that, you know, signal early attention or interest?

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

We, absolutely support sharing science and support the concept of preprints. we actually encourage authors of the manuscript submitted to Nature branded journals and Springer Nature at Large publish preprints. They are a very, very useful resource. So, some editors, I already mentioned there is a lot of science happening and It would be a lot of work for editors to scout for papers, but some editors like to do this and they do this.

Milosz:

Hmm.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

know I know

Milosz:

see.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

preprint servers are a source of, invited submissions for many editors and many journals. They are also an information for us about what is happening, what is coming to conclusion. If there is a preprint already written up and posted, this means that that study is. nearly completed and, and maybe it will be submitted. Maybe it's already submitted. So we can see for the lack of better word, a competitor, if the paper is not yet with us. So they are, you know, way of, sharing scientific findings, knowledge and, information is good. a transparency and public sharing of data is for sure good and we are for it and preprints are only helpful.

Milosz:

Right. And then there's one more aspect of journals and the work at the journals, which is keeping the quality right. I mean, I know that you have an increasing number of checklists and

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Yes,

Milosz:

that are enforced.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

yes, yes.

Milosz:

How does this process look like internally?

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

You know quality is something that the peer review is supposed to ensure, right? But, obviously when we read the I am lucky enough at Nature Communications. I don't see a lot of poor manuscripts. and generally the vast majority of what is being submitted is scientifically sound. So, the quality is, you know, it's, it's good sound science to begin with. uh, if there was to be a submission that is just pure science. poorly made. We would notice this as editors. So we would not engage with a paper that has not a single control or describes the experiments which should be done in replicates. And there is just one experiment, one single experiment done for every single, figure that would also not, not fly with us. So this is like the very first, layer, but like I say, it doesn't really happen that often, but this could be also of where I see it in the journal, the types of manuscripts that I handle. I don't see many of these truly poor, low quality submissions, at all. Now, yes, we, and I'm sure other, publishing houses also have these checklists that we ask the authors to fill out. This is to remind them all the different kinds of data and documentation that are necessary to support their paper. And, these were developed, these checklists are always developed, as an answer to an existing need. so one two, checklist that we have quite recently developed within the portfolio are a checklist for machine learning manuscripts and manuscripts with molecular dynamics simulations. And this didn't exist when I joined the company, but we see an increasing frequency and importance of computational approaches. all the different fields of science. So obviously computational science, let's put it this way,

Milosz:

hmm.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

always existed. And there were always journals that published these kinds of experiments, but now we see them In many disciplines and many different types of papers and we found a need to guide the authors how to report their findings because we have seen the same kind of problems and the same kind of issues highlighted by the referees over and over again. So this is where, these checklists come from.

Milosz:

Right. I also imagine that it happens that, for example, a paper that's mostly experimental, but has a computational side, maybe won't have a referee that is an expert or should have, but maybe out of the two referees who aren't there, it will miss a referee who is an expert on this approach. Right. So like you need to rely on something that is more general, more robust.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

yes. No. So, yes. Although I have to say this depends this is actually an editor's scholar part of our job to decide whether even if there is a single experiment, if it is crucial enough. important enough for the final conclusions, for the core conclusions

Milosz:

Mm hmm.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

then it will have a referee. And, we try to select referees that cover the entire broad spectrum of the techniques used. uh,

Milosz:

Right. Right.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

When there is a single experiment of a type in a manuscript, it's a great opportunity for early career researchers to serve as independent reviewers where they, we, and we often actually do this, we, we reach out to, to very early career, um, scientists, be it senior graduate students or postdoctoral researchers to only assess a single experiment for the paper just to make sure that it is, done correctly. But yes, the checklist also help with with that assessment. for sure. And they are also, you know, reminder for the authors, that everything needs to be documented and also transparent. so this is how we also ensure quality. I mentioned about the finding of the reviewers. There is this notion out there that there is three reviewers to every manuscript, but this is not really true. Sometimes there are many more, and we see it more and more often. the number of interdisciplinary Work increases. many, many papers really span a lot of different disciplines. I work on the life sciences side of things and biophysics, many, manuscripts that are submitted go from very simple in vitro biophysics. a protein or other small molecule and go all the way to in vivo experiments in animals. And there is just no way that three people could cover this entire breadth of different approaches. So oftentimes we have more reviewers, than just

Milosz:

That's great. That's a great development that causes a very good headache to have. Yes,

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

It, it is difficult to keep the review process short, timely, because we deal with many more people. We have to find these referees. and then at the end, we need to put all the different opinions together. And this is also something that editors do. try to, synthesize different reports into one at least in our heads. But We talked about the different approaches and, of course, there is other publishers and other venues the authors really do receive a single report has been synthesized by someone else or by a group of editors.

Milosz:

see. So to end up on a maybe, utopian or speculative note, is it something you would change yourself about the peer review process? Do you think there is something that you would love to see? Maybe from the reviewers, maybe from the authors, maybe from the structure that is such a, I don't know, inefficiency or annoyance that you would like to change.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

No, I, you know, I think process isn't that bad really. It's like science. it's self improved, self corrects, right? thing which I really would like, and this is utopian, really. One thing which I would change was that the process of publishing is more recognized in science as also a part of the scientific process because I can see it from where I sit, can see that science is still happening at this very last step. so I would love that this whole process is more recognized in that, funding bodies recognize that part of the scientist's job is to be a referee. Oftentimes as editors, we hear, you know, we, when we invite reviewers, they complain about not having the time for it. There is an ongoing discussion whether or not reviewers should be compensated for their expertise and for their work. And I know that it takes a lot of time paper. I see. instances where reviewers ask for the original data, their old data, and they analyze them themselves to see whether the analysis done reported in the manuscript is done correctly or, or just to help the authors to support their conclusions better. so I know it is extremely time consuming and very engaging and it requires a lot of expertise, but I feel that, including a payment like per service payment may introduce some bias. So in my ideal world, the fact that scientists do engage in peer review, do peer review would be already known and it would be included like formally recognized by the founders, by the source of the scientist's salaries. And there should be a time for them, left in their schedules for, for the reviewing. So that it is known, it is more recognized as something that is happening because it is. but it is often overlooked. At the same time, you know, again, the entire process of publishing peer review and so on, so on should be more recognized. So the editors should be, I would love that the editors are seen as a different type of a scientist who engages with the process at the very last stage. And it's more of this person who looks at your science and recognizes who will be the best expert to review, to advise you how to make it even better or how to communicate your findings better or how to support them better. so, you know, in my ideal world, this entire final stretch would be also, more recognized as something important because I often see huge improvements happening during. The whole process. And, and I, I know that it could be like this for every manuscript for sure. And um,

Milosz:

I recognize, it for a lot of us scientists who publish, it's seen more as a final sprint, right? You have some deadlines maybe for another grant application or your student needs to

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Yeah,

Milosz:

for something and so on. And people just want to get through it fast

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

yeah.

Milosz:

without much second thought.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

know,

Milosz:

Yeah, but it could be.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

sometimes it happens, it is possible, but oftentimes it could be just this final, polishing stage that is also important and it would be nice if it could be recognized as such.

Milosz:

absolutely. See how this can serve as a great feedback. And I will actually, when I review papers, I explicitly try to make it like one week or two weeks exercise in improving the paper for the author. Oh,

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

years on the project. And they spend so much effort and time and brainpower and everything. They pour their hearts and minds and everything into this, projects and papers. And I feel. Um, you know, great. That's how it should be. But it also makes them blind to some aspects of the of what they do.

Milosz:

yes.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

review process, it really, I really wish people didn't see it as. others going after the mistakes which are made because it's really not that it should be more seeing the reviewers as additional experts in the field who are also interested in the same topic who just want to human knowledge to go forward, to be pushed beyond the boundaries. and you just get, when you send your paper out to, a publisher and they send it out to reviewers, these reviewers are additional experts who will advise you on things that you may have overlooked, or maybe misinterpreted somehow, maybe, but often just, you know. They might point in directions in which you didn't have a look, just because you were looking in all these other directions. It's

Milosz:

Even for the future. Absolutely.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

yes, yes, and oftentimes this is what happens, right uh, the advice

Milosz:

Okay.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Considered beyond the scope of the current manuscript and

Milosz:

Yes.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

project, yeah.

Milosz:

Right. Okay. Let's end on this optimistic note. Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz. Thank you a lot for all the commentaries and insights. I think that for many of our listeners, it will, shed new light on the work in the shadows.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Yes.

Milosz:

thanks a lot.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

no, no shadows.

Milosz:

In the light.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

transparent and, in the light. We, we try to be very transparent and yes, please look out for us at conferences. We editors are also humans. We are also scientists. We are people who love science and this is why we do this and we are not after you. We feel and we try to help everyone when we don't work in the shadows. No, we try to

Milosz:

Good.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

transparent as possible. And I hope this helps this entire conversation helps with transparency a little bit.

Milosz:

Sure. Thank you for this message. Have a great day.

Katarzyna Marcinkiewicz:

Have a good day. Thank you.

Thank you for listening. See you in the next episode of Face Space Invaders.