The Blog Journal
This blog is not about actual elephants. Sorry. It is about science. We are passionate about science and made a blog about it. But we are not covering the latest findings in elementary particle physics or essays on Luhmann’s system theory. This blog is about those problems in science that everyone sees but nobody talks about: The journal system, the idiocy of authorship, citation cartels, career chances for young or female researchers. You name it. Looked at it this way, this blog is about elephants after all. Elephants in the lab. One by one we will spot these elephants and write about them and as we go along, you are invited to participate in this great science safari. And: Every post on this blog is actually citable! We make this possible by giving each entry a separate DOI. Did you spot an elephant in the wild? Do you have questions or recommendations?
Editorial Team
Advisory Board
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ANNE SCHREITERAnne Schreiter is Executive Director of the German Scholars Organization (GSO), a non-profit that advocates for researchers and scientists, offering programs and training for academics to build impactful careers – in academia and beyond. Anne studied Communication in Social and Economic Contexts at the Berlin University of the Arts and Chinese Language and Culture in Nanjing und Shanghai. After her PhD in Organization Studies and Cultural Theory at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, she spent a year as postdoctoral researcher at the University of California at Berkeley. Anne is board member of the „Research Management Network“ („Netzwerk Wissenschaftsmanagement“) and a mentor for students in multiple programs. |
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FLORIAN FREISTETTERFlorian Freistetter, born in 1977, studied astronomy at the University of Vienna. Between 2000 und 2010 he worked as astronomer at the Universities of Vienna, Jena and Heidelberg. Since 2010 he works as science communicator. He has written some books, published in a lot of journals, owns a blog and a podcast and is part of the science comedy group Science Busters. |
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KIERAN BOOLUCKKieran Booluck is Research Impact Manager at the London School of Economics and Political Science, working on the university’s impact submission to the UK’s Research Excellence Framework 2021. Prior to that, he was the editor of the LSE Impact Blog, publishing research and commentary on topics related to research policy, scholarly communications, and the wider impact of academic research. He also worked in academic journals publishing for a number of years. |
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MIKAEL LAAKSOMikael Laakso works as an Associate Professor at Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki Finland. He has been researching the changing landscape towards openness in scholarly publishing by studying combinations of bibliometrics, web metrics, business models, science policy, and author behaviour for over 10 years. In addition to research he is also active in open access advocacy as part of national and international working groups. |
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SAM ILLINGWORTHSam Illingworth is a Senior Lecturer in Science Communication at Manchester Metropolitan University, where his research involves using poetry and games to enhance dialogue between scientists and non-scientists. You can find out more about Sam’s wok by visiting his website. |
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TOBY SMITHToby Smith has served at AAU since January 2003 as Vice President for Policy and oversees AAU’s policy projects, initiatives and activities including the AAU Undergraduate STEM education and PhD education initiatives. He is responsible for matters relating to science and innovation policy and broader impacts of science. Before coming to AAU, Toby worked as a federal relations representative in the Washington D.C. Offices of the University of Michigan (1999-2002) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1992-1999). Toby has written and spoken widely on science policy and funding issues. He is the co-author a book on national science policy published in 2008 by the University of Michigan Press titled, Beyond Sputnik – U.S. Science Policy in the 21stCentury. Toby holds a master’s degree in Legislative Affairs from George Washington University, and a Bachelor of General Studies (BGS) degree from the University of Michigan. |

ANNA CURSON
Anna Curson works as Strategic Partnership Manager at F1000Research with a focus on research funding agencies and corporate clients. Her role involves working with research funding organizations to develop new opportunities and partnerships for open research publishing as well as providing strategic oversight of existing initiatives including enhancements and developments. Prior to joining F1000Research in 2021 Anna worked for many years at Wellcome where she managed a number of strategic partnership initiatives with both public and private funding agencies and provided operational leadership for their biomedical sciences funding team.
BLOGROLL
Smart scientific poetry by Sam Illingworth The Poetry of Science — thepoetryofscience.scienceblog.com Science-related comedy and live shows Science Busters — sciencebusters.at Most famous german science blogger Florian Freistetter Florian Freistetter — florian-freistetter.de Research on Scholarly Communication & the Humanities Le Publikateur — lepublikateur.de Analyses from the inside: science policy and research assessment ScienceMetrics — sciencemetrics.org A blog to facilitate a healthy debate and discussion on the relationship between science and policy making Science in Policy — sheffieldscienceinpolicy.com On the impact of academic work in the social sciences and other disciplines LSE Impact Blog — blogs.lse.ac.uk German journalism on science and education Jan-Martin Wiarda — jmwiarda.de Library ideas (in German) LIBREAS — libreas.eu German blog on political theory, philosophy and intellectual history Theorieblog — theorieblog.de German blog on Open Science, libraries Leibniz-Informationszentrum Technik und Naturwissenschaft — tib.eu
FRIENDS & FAMILY
Institutional support and technical infrastructure Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society — hiig.de Conceptual support and design Larissa Wunderlich — larissawunderlich.de Cooperation for events impact distillery — impactdistillery.com