Stephen Curry

My twitter bio – “Structural biologist, dazzled by X-rays, cares about science” – gives a very succinct description of my research interests and hints at why I am a supporter of preprints. As a protein crystallographer investigating the structures and mechanisms of biological macromolecules using X-ray crystallography, I subscribe to a long-established tradition of data-sharing (via the Protein Data Bank) that is in tune with the principles of openness embodied in preprints. And my caring about science has involved me in campaigns over the past 10 year to improve scholarly publishing, research assessment and science policy, all of which, in my view, stand to benefit from the practice of preprinting.

Although I am currently shifting out of frontline research, it has been established practice in my lab for a few years to publish our manuscripts as preprints. Have a look at this example in bioRxiv – or this one in PeerJ Preprints. All of my more recent papers on research metrics, open access and the history of scholarly publication have first seen the light of day as preprints.

Why have I done this? Because I think it’s good for science and scholarship and I am prepared to put my money where my mouth is. I have written at length elsewhere about the benefits of preprints but the key advantage is that they simply and effectively-short circuit one of the major problems in contemporary academic publishing: the withholding of results by authors competing for journal prestige. The delays in the release of new findings due to the cycles of submission, rejection and resubmission as authors work their way down the hierarchy are unacceptable in the digital age. Preprints make science better because they speed up the rate at which new results can be absorbed, critiqued and built on. The fact that preprints are ‘unbranded’ helps to refocus attention where it should be – not on the name of the impact factor of the journal where the is eventually published, but on its contents.

There are other benefits too. The openness of preprints appears to me to be re-energizing the collaborative practices – sharing of new findings, inviting commentary – that has always been part of academic research but that of late seems to have been struggling under the grinding pressures of careerism. That collaborative spirit embraces the public too. The practice of preprinting is a better fit with society’s quite proper demands (as the ultimate paymaster) for researchers to more effectively respond to the 21st Century challenges that we all face. That in turn, in an age when expertise is being undermined by populism, may help to maintain public trust in the research enterprise. So my message to anyone hesitating on the threshold of preprinting is: just do it.

ORCiD – ResearchGate – Twitter: @Stephen_Curry