We’re very excited to announce today the launch of PeerJ, a fascinating new experiment to find an open access business model which improves upon accessibility, submission time, and the peer review mechanism. One reason we’re excited is that Mendeley and PeerJ share quite a bit of common history. Our former research director, Jason Hoyt, is one of the co-founders, and the other co-founder is Pete Binfield, the former publisher of one of our closest publishing allies, PLoS ONE. This development is also exciting in the context of the massive public support of open access and the other publishing startups in this space, such as eLife and F1000 Reports.Read More »
Tag: business models
5 steps to disrupt AND save academia. Hint: use startup investors
Let’s play the blame game. Government and universities have failed researchers.
I have written before that there are too many PhDs being produced every year. That’s our most viewed post with twice the traffic of the third most viewed post. I think that says something. The result of too many PhDs has meant a surplus of academics doing multiple post-doc tours of duty, lower wages, and a waste of tax payer money. All would be fine if there were enough jobs outside of academia to support those researchers in industry and government, but there are not. Let’s clarify that, there are not enough jobs willing to pay PhDs what they are really worth. And guess what that gets you? Sure, some really smart and passionate lovers of science/research who stick with it, but many of the smart people move on to careers outside of traditional academic jobs where there is money. You lose your talent.
Today is not about arguing this claim at greater length though. Today is about alternatives to this problem by asking where are all of the venture capitalists and startup angel investors?