JRC EDITORIAL REVIEW BOARD - OUR PERPLEXITIES REMAIN

JRC EDITORIAL REVIEW BOARD - OUR PERPLEXITIES REMAIN


We draw your attention to the recently created JRC Editorial Review Board. Several of our members have expressed concerns about the need for such a board and the scope of its Terms of Reference. While agreeing that the JRC must ensure the highest quality possible for its publications, it has not been demonstrated that there is really currently a serious problem that needs to be resolved in this way.

See our original post in Connected for further details: Connected

R&D Ispra sent a note asking for clarification to the Acting DG C. Vitcheva. See here: R&D Note

We recently received this reply to our note: Reply from the DG

We appreciate the further explanations received, but remain not fully convinced about the scope and utility of the project. For example, the concern about increasing bureaucracy - it is stated that the 'Editorial Review Board will have to set up its own new process', but this is easier said than done.

We welcome any further comments you may have, and will transmit them to the DG in a meeting soon.

R&D Ispra

Letter of Ms Charlina Vitcheva regarding the JRC Editorial Review Board

Brussels, 2nd December 2019

OPEN REPLY TO THE LETTER OF R&D ISPRA

Dear Mr. Selvagio, dear Mr. Kenny,

Thank you for your letter of 25 October 2019 with your observations regarding the JRC Editorial Review Board.

The decision to set up the review board was discussed and taken by the JRC senior management in the senior management meeting of December 2018. As Acting Director General, I remain supportive of this initiative and would like to ensure continuity with regard to the decisions taken by the JRC senior managers. Therefore, I am prepared to go forward with the initiative, to make the excellence we have earned with our peer-reviewed scientific articles the norm for all our publications.

Nonetheless, I recognise some of your concerns. They were expressed earlier during the JRC Scientific Integrity Road Show in 2018/2019 where they were largely discussed with Heads of Unit, project leaders and work package leaders. Let me take the opportunity of your letter to resolve remaining misunderstandings about the work of the Editorial Review Board.

Firstly, the review board will implement an open and transparent process uniformly applied across the JRC. All official writing on results from the JRC’s Work Programme will pass through the board, which is best practice among organisations with which we like to be compared. The board will distinguish scientific articles that will be published in peer-reviewed journals and scientific or technical reports published by the JRC using the logo of the European Commission. These two broadly different categories of publications have different responsibilities and for the scientific articles, the review by the board will be relatively light and quick. The toughest task is in the second category, where improvement is necessary and the most visible results are expected. In the new context and in view of the high ambition stated by Vice-President Sefcovic, the JRC wider and more strategic involvement as well as the expected higher visibility of our policy relevant work will justify enhanced effort in ensuring not only scientific excellence but also top quality and best policy relevance of this second type of publications.

Secondly, our decision to create this board is based on favourable cost-benefit considerations, but it will be of paramount importance to closely follow the operation of the Editorial Review Board. Refinement of the review process and evaluation of the performance after the first year is included in the Terms of Reference as a major task of the board and we will of course publish the findings of these assessments in the JRC.

Finally, attached to this letter you could find additional points to the specific concerns expressed in your letter, drafted by the Chief Scientist and the Advisor for Evaluation and Scientific Integrity, who also prepared the terms of Reference together with the Scientific Committee. I am also available for further discussion if you would find it necessary.

Kind regards

Charlina VITCHEVA
Ref. Ares(2019)7415333 - 02/12/2019


JRC Editorial Review Board - Answers to questions raised by R&D Ispra (25.10.2019)

- Our scientific excellence has been demonstrated, the need for an editorial board has not.

For a number of years now bibliometric analyses demonstrate the scientific excellence of the JRC based on our publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals (around 800 per year). About a further 2000 manuscripts go out as JRC publication with a Commission logo, but without any systematic, harmonised assessment process. It has long been a concern for senior management that these reports differ greatly in quality to say the least. This has weighed heavily in the decision to follow the best practices of organisations comparable to ours, i.e. to set up an editorial review board that has substantive insight into all our publications and that can guarantee their good quality.

- The overwhelming structure of the JERB is incompatible with resources at the JRC and would lead to additional delays

“Quality comes at a price”. Enhancing the overall quality of JRC authored publications requires some resources. The review task of the chief editor, the members and the reviewers will add not more than a few days of work to the total effort for each publication (for review work on articles for peer-reviewed journals this will on average be less than a day). This should be compared to benefits like, a uniform application of publication and quality criteria; a quality distribution with a lower spread and skewed towards excellence; building an even stronger reputation as reliable source of information.
Regarding delays, the editorial board is designed to handle papers for submission in peer-reviewed journals more quickly than within the PUBSY workflow. In addition, the procedure includes a fast track for urgent publications.

- Pubsy can take care of quality issues; don’t create a parallel redundant system

PUBSY is a repository and workflow system that cannot emulate or substitute a tailor-made editorial review based on human intelligence. Submission of a paper to the Review Board will replace the PUBSY workflow for the publications in question. The Editorial Review Board will have to set up its own new process.

- The political sensitivity should be assessed before the manuscript is prepared.

Political sensitivity changes with the issues of the day and should not be confused with, for example, dealing with sensitive information. It should interfere as little as possible with our work, but as part of a political organisation, we cannot ignore it. The Editorial Review Board works closely with and reports directly to the Director General, an ideal position to identify possible political sensitivity. This will allow us to flag sensitivity at the right time and to prepare and inform the political layer accordingly