A New Model for Interdisciplinary Peer Review
Monday, June 1st, 2009In June 2005 I wrote out some ideas on improving interdisciplinary peer review, in the form of a mock proposal for creating an interdisciplinary journal (referred to as “New Biologist” in the text below). I later condensed this into a very brief piece in Nature Online’s peer review focus. Recently, Russ Altman asked me to post the longer, detailed proposal so he could refer to it on his blog. Here it is.
Goals
New Biologist will create a home for high-impact interdisciplinary research in the biological sciences, which is ill-served by existing publishing and peer review models. It will do so by focusing on solving the problems of interdisciplinary peer review, and of targeting (and in some cases creating) interdisciplinary audiences. We will provide a new channel for creative, path-breaking work that crosses boundaries and does not easily fit any single discipline. We will pioneer new models of interdisciplinary peer review, and the creation of “virtual journals” that can serve as community centers for new audiences forming at the intersection of multiple disciplines. For all of these goals, we will make use of new technologies for rapid interaction and community building based on the Internet.