The confluence of rapid technological progress, growing realities of poor scalability, and reduced tolerance by funders for journal inefficiencies has made our current path untenable. 2/

This isn’t just some distant fantasy given that the NIH, the largest public funder of science in the world, is now looking to cap journal publication fees for NIH-funded research. A critical destabilization of this anachronistic system is imminent. FINALLY. 3/

To those who thought things would never change, it might feel pretty unnerving to not know how the many aspects of science currently dependent on journals can function well without them. 4/

@mbeisen.bsky.social and I have already been operating without journal proxies throughout our careers and, tbh, every aspect of it is better. Both the experience of doing science and the potential outcomes for science. 5/

And once you start to actually operate without leaning on gatekeepers and tastemakers, it becomes hard to fathom being held back in this way. 6/

Hoping our experience can help others see they are more ready for this change than they realize, today we outline what it looks like to publish, discover, and evaluate science/scientists in a post-journal world. 7/

Turns out scientists already have the ideal toolkit and something much better is possible when we’re not constrained by the impossibly low ceiling of journal aspirations. 8/

Check out the latest from Mike and I on how to be a scientist in a post-journal world 9/9 thescientistpapers.substack.com/p/how-to-be-...