Welcome to the Publishing Research Consortium

We are a group of associations and publishers that supports research into global issues that impact scholarly communication, in order to promote evidence-based discussion. Our objective is to support work that is scientific and pro-scholarship. Overall, we aim to promote an understanding of the role of scholarly publishing and its impact on research and teaching.


 

New! Early Career Researchers: the harbingers of change?

Report on Year one, 2016

By far the largest group, the future of research, ECR attitudes and behaviours matter. Yet there are no recent investigations into the extent to which their behaviours may prove transformational.

This qualitative study of ECRs from seven countries, a first report of a longitudinal study, tracks communication  and publication behaviour, and attitudes to peer review, collaboration, sharing, open access, social media and emerging impact mechanisms.

Full report

Key findings

Text Mining of Journal Literature 2016

PRC survey investigates the knowledge, views and experiences of researchers

Researcher awareness is still relatively low ... but the majority are open to learning more ...
...and current users see the technique as holding great promise.

 Key findings

 Full report  

PRC Peer Review Survey 2015

Peer review is still broadly supported, with a preference for conventional methods ...
but the desire for improvements is increasing.

This report by Mark Ware of survey data from late 2015 analyses opinions and current attitudes to peer review among research authors and reviewers, while also enabling analysis of longitudinal trends by comparison with earlier surveys by PRC (2007), Sense About Science (2009), and Taylor & Francis (2015).

 Key findings

 Full report

 

 

New PRC Guide

Open Access Licensing

A legal perspective for authors, publishers, funders, repository operators, and all stakeholders in the communication of science

Carlo Scollo Lavizzari and René Viljoen
 
 
The licensing of open access publication is an evolving concern for which no practical guide yet exists. This short and we hope readable perspective serves as an introduction to the issues involved for all those concerned with scholarly communication, and in particular for those involved with the drafting and appraisal of licences and publishing agreements. 
 
It covers the complex inter-dependence of copyright licensing, publishing agreements, and open access or other licences ‘downstream’. For a full understanding there is much ground to be covered, including: the landscape of open access; the concept of copyright; the nature of publishing agreements; the principles behind open access licensing; and the impact of other agreements that affect scholarly practitioners.
 
The guide concludes with some recommendations and opinions to steer sustainable open access licensing, and offers a checklist of concerns for all actors involved with open access publication to follow.

Another popular PRC Guide

Text Mining and Scholarly Publishing

What is text mining? Why do it and who is? How does it work? What do publishers need to do? 

Jonathan Clark

Text mining is generating a frenzy of debate in and around the scholarly publishing world. There are many questions swirling around, and few sources to consult. There are the usual misunderstandings and over-enthusiastic and unrealisitic expectations associated with technology hype, but text mining is thought to hold real benefits for the progress of science. This brief but comprehensive PRC Guide gives an overview of the issues, the challenges, the technology and the activity happening around text mining and brings the reader up to date with the debate.

 Access this PRC Guide here.

 

A popular PRC Guide

Peer Review: An Introduction and Guide

What is it? How does it work? What about misconduct? Is there an alternative?

Mark Ware

The reader of this short Guide (27pp) will be left with a coherent and forward-looking insight into the processes, the shortcomings and the innovations around peer review, and with a deeper understanding of why peer review is such an enduring factor in the research process. The Guide describes the elements that make up the peer review process, the workflows and tracking systems, the issues around publication ethics, and the latest developments in post-publication review and altmetrics that may represent the direction peer review will take in the future.

Executive Summary

Access this PRC Guide here
http://publishingresearchconsortium.com/
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