I'm spending the moring at the @edfuturesinstitute.bsky.social for a Creative Tech Scotland Event. Looking forward to some interesting discussions on how innovators and entrepreneurs can be better supported in Scotland.

I'm delighted to announce that I'm joining @authentisci.bsky.social as a trustee. There's a need to push back against misinformation on the web. What inspires me about AuthentiSci is the opportunity to improve quality and accountability of scientific journalism by empowering researchers themselves.

We need to divert our resources to sustaining the infrastructure that makes it possible for the community to establish new norms. We need to encourage and reward the behaviour or practices that meet the standards we intentionally set in policy. #r2rconf

It's taken until now for someone to note that in a discussion about researcher incentives and guidelines for AI use in academia, Funders are conspicuously absent. HT Simone Ragavooloo from @frontiersmedia.bsky.social #r2rconf

Researchers don't report or share AI failures because there's a stigma against its use. #r2rconf.

Solutions from @nikeshgo.bsky.social #r2rconf.

AI isn't inherently unfair, it's optimised for a very narrow user group. Each iteration will become more biased, unless we intervene. #r2rconf This. If we refuse to engage with AI, we lose our ability to influence the outcomes. It's irresponsible to try to wait until the tech goes away.

A brilliant presentation by @nikeshgo.bsky.social from @cactusglobal.bsky.social #r2rconf Outlining the many ways in which AI amplifies the biases built into scholarly publishing.

Why isn't Peer Review Commons more popular than it is even though it helps researchers by reducing the number of review cycles and time to publish? Researchers publish strategically. They make conscious choices about where to publish based on audience and career considerations. #r2rconf #r2r2026

There are claims that DeepSeek and other Chinese models are 'better' than US models like GPT and Claude depite being smaller. It's worth noting that there is a live debate in AI circles about how to benchmark LLMs and many who say that the evals do not reflect real-world usefulness well. #r2rconf

Governance of AI is chaotic with various governments actively regulating while others retreat to a laissez-faire position. #r2rconf

Which future are we building by @cmkeithw.bsky.social #r2rconf. Opens by describing the zero-click 'problem' and asks if it is a problem? Does it matter?

The ‘what should we do to fix peer review’ debate doesn’t appear to have moved on much in 20 years #R2RConf

Keynote by @mcintold.bsky.social at #r2rconf Focusing on impostors and impersonators, showing how insecure the scholarly record has become. Our security and QA processes are inadequate because they rely on a definition of trust that predate information warfare.

Measles is no longer officially eliminated in the UK There's no cure or effective treatment for measles. 1 in 5 kids that get it require a hospital visit. Since its introduction in 1968, the vaccine has saved an estimated 4,500 lives Anti-vax nonsense costs lives www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

26 months since the cyberattack on @britishlibrary.bsky.social Only now have some services been restored with launch of Alma & PrimoVE from @clarivate.com 1) Well done to both teams on getting this done, and 2) This is a cautionary tale of the dangers of not having a proper tech / security strategy

"The systems that we currently have aren't robust enough for the level of quality assurance we need." How might libraries help with this problem? scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/12/17/w... via @phillbjones.bsky.social

Last week I attended the #STMInnovation and #STMIntegrity days in London. I believe the scholarly research ecosystem needs to change in a pretty substantial way if we're to face in to the societal threats that have emerged. scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/12/17/w...

Congratulations to this year's winners of the #vessaliusinnovationawards 1. Profectus.academy 2. Safespace research 3. Thesify Well done to everyone on the #kargerteam. This year's award was the best yet and the hardest to judge.

Greetings from #London! The #KargerTeam is attending the #VesaliusInnovationAward ceremony tomorrow at the STM Innovator Fair. Who will be the #winner this year? ⭐ @authentisci.bsky.social ⭐ Profectus Academy ⭐ Safespace Research ⭐ Scitility PBC ⭐ @thesify.bsky.social Find out tomorrow!

A lot of #scholcomm #publishing startups focus on using #AI to detect bad manuscripts at the point of review. Publishing is a late stage step in the scholalry supply change. Trying to detect what has happened at each upstream step is a fool's errand. The whole chain needs hardening #STMinnovation

The opening keynote at #STMInnovation, Rachel Gubermann-Hill of U Bristol and UKCORI says there's no real evidence that the public doesn't trust scientists Here's the key article she recomended: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

I'm at the STM trends meeting this morning. Thanks to @springernature.com for hosting us. I used to work in this office and it's nice to be back.

I really like Google's pageless layout feature. Unless it's intended to be printed, page breaks are a distraction from the semantic structure of the doc. I only wish somebody had told them that line lengths longer than about 100 characters are really hard to read 'Narrow' should be 'Medium'

Big news. @kargerpublishers.bsky.social to be acquired by Oxford University Press @oxfordacademic.bsky.social corp.oup.com/news/oxford-...

PKP released the Publication Facts Label for OJS 3.3–3.5, a transparency tool to strengthen journal integrity and reader trust. Built as a plugin, it helps journals demonstrate their quality and accountability. Learn more: pkp.sfu.ca/2025/10/31/p... #OpenAccess #OJS #MediaLiteracy #ScholarlyComms

Research security is an under-discussed topic in #scholcomm and #academicpublishing circles. I think it's time to pay a bit more attention because the mandates and requirements will be coming. Could research security measures reshape open science? open.substack.com/pub/scholarl...

Twenty years after publishing their first #OA article @royalsociety.org are going full #OpenAccess using #SubscribeToOpen as the funding model. katinamagazine.org/content/arti...

A new substack from @jontreadway.bsky.social @roobina.bsky.social Sarah Greaves and @pgarner.bsky.social I've already subscribed and you should too. scholarlyfutures.substack.com/p/launch-of-...

I have a new post out on @scholarlykitchen.bsky.social where I look at the evolving AI tools market in scholarly publishing. Spoiler: It's still maturing and is a little bit messy.

Interesting report on OpenAI's DevDay. People have been talking about how LLMs will replace user interfaces for some time. With 800M users having set their default search engine to ChatGPT and the rollout of in-chat apps and new API integrations, this is how OpenAI thinks that will happen.

I'm looking forward to speaking a this panel on whether AI can help 'clean up' scientific publishing. There's a lot of talk about AI and about research integrity, so let's talk about the intersection of the two. Hosted by @easeeditors.bsky.social and @editageinsights.bsky.social #peerreviewweek 1/2

Arthur's seat is currently on fire! It's not everyday you see a wildfire from your front door. At least if you live in Edinburgh, you don't.

The call for papers for #R2Rconf 2026 is now out. r2rconf.com/r2r-call-for... There are two deadlines (end of July and end of August). If you hit the first one, you get feedback and chance to refine your proposal.

That right there is a bearded fireworm. Not to be messed with.

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie..... In other news, underwater photography is really much harder than on land. That's why this one's a bit blurry

Today's master of underwater disguise is a cuttlefish. You can't tell the scale in this photo very well, but this crafty little mollusk was only about 5cm long.

If you need me during the next week, I'll be here... somewhere.

Welcome to today's edition of 'Spot the Octopus'. The last one is a bit easier. Taken in Xwenji bay, Gozo

My @morebrains.coop colleague @alicemeadows.bsky.social, @irfanullah.bsky.social, and I were all lucky enough to be in Oslo a couple of weeks ago for the @easeeditors.bsky.social #EASEconference We talk about some of our personal highlights and insights in today's @scholarlykitchen.bsky.social post

#EORC25 Ali Kay orcid.org/0009-0009-52... says that when the 2021 REF OA policy was introduced, there was significant growth in repository deposits, but only because they had to I was a researcher in the US when the NIH launched their green OA policy years ago. History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes

Damon Querry is talking about taking Research Information Management data and making if FAIR findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable I'm glad interoperability in research management is finally getting some attention. Too much data is locked away and inaccessible. #EORC25

So these are the positive and negative associations that researchers have of open science according to Zuzanna Zagrodzka orcid.org/0000-0002-86... Good to see growth in positive perceptions, but we're seeing the same objections around cost and career risk My take: That's what's stopping us #EORC25

More senior researchers are more familiar with Open Science - Good news More senior researcher see Open Science less positively and riskier - Not good news Hard to untangle if that's generational or if researchers are being put off openness as they gain experience. #EORC25

Interesting talk from Alisa Niven at #eorc25 on behavioural science to understand how to get researchers to be more open Used the COM-B model, which is apparently used for motivations for healthy lifestyle I felt the model didn't pay enough attention to negative incentives

I'm attending the Edinburgh Open Research Conference today. The theme is 'Open Research: What's stopping us?" I'm looking forward to hearing what the various speakers thing about that. #EORC25

The closing debate of #easeeditors #easeconference @irfanullah.bsky.social fighting an uphill battle but doing a great job of arguing that editors should not worry about disinformation.

On the role of social media in science communication: "We must use social media—because that’s where the communication happens." A reminder that effective communication requires meeting people where they are. 3/3 #EASEoslo #EASEevents

Have you noticed how when you add an affiliation to your @orcid.org profile, it autocompletes for many organisations? Why is that good? It means that the organisation is uniquely identified, making it easier to find everybosy associated with an organisation and their activities. 1/3

Really important points by Sofie Wennström, speaking about @thinkchecksub.bsky.social at #easeconference. In the discussion about author behaviour when it comes to predatory journals, poor university / employer support and training isn't talked about enough