Prof. Laura Lechuga on open access and pre-print sharing during pandemics

by Virginia Greco

In an interview published in the CSIC Open Newsletter, ICN2 group leader Prof. Laura Lechuga discusses the evolution of scientific publication dynamics over the COVID19 pandemics and highlights advantages and some critical aspects of the Open Science system.

In the latest edition of the CSIC Open Newsletter, Prof. Laura Lechuga, leader of the ICN2 NanoBiosensors and Bioanalytical Applications Group, shares her view on the increasing use and multiplication of free access platforms where pre-print papers are uploaded before going through the peer-review process. In the interview, Prof. Lechuga explains that, during the first stage of the COVID19 pandemic, the possibility to share advances in research about diagnostic, treatment and vaccines against this disease on platforms such as C19RapidReview played a very positive role, since allowed the whole community to keep abreast of research progress and new approaches.

However, later on –according to Prof. Lechuga—scientists started to be flooded with thousands of new publications, not always relevant or accurate: this has polluted the system and has made it difficult to sort out the studies that are really valuable. She also comments that it started as a very collaborative effort towards achieving results quickly to face the pandemic, but as time goes by, things are going back to the “normal” dynamic of scientific publication, which includes competition between different research teams.

Finally, Prof. Lechuga points out that, even though the Open Science philosophy is very beneficial –particularly for countries with fewer resources and access to publications— researchers working in areas with a strong technology transfer component, as her own, often struggle to align with open access requirements while preserving the intellectual property and the future exploitability of newly-developed technologies.

Read the full interview here. Digital.CSIC is the institutional repository of the Spanish National Research Council where, since 2008, research outputs of the CSIC’s scientific community are organised, preserved and made accessible in open access. The related CSIC Open Newsletter provides information and updates about the repository and share experiences with the open access system by its scientific and librarian community.