Headwaters - Holding Funders Accountable

Anderson discusses how funders spend their money and exert their influence matters. Roles and responsibilities around open access (OA) have become rather confused. Years ago, funders strayed from their lane and began dabbling in publishing -- from funding PLOS' founding (fine) to launching their own journals and publishing platforms (conflict of interest, so not fine). Objective peer-review and editorial review are vital to ensuring a level of integrity around scientific information, and to extend funder interests into the evaluation of results isn't proper. At the APE meeting this year, it's seemed from comments and descriptions of publishers that they want to transform publishers from trusted, independent intermediaries and into service providers. This suggests they have something on their mind other than having their research outputs judged in a disinterested manner. My worst fear is they want a thumb on the scale. They definitely cast a large shadow over the researchers they fund.