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Policy-relevant research is drowning in the flood of scientific papers that are published every day. But what if temporary ‘pop up’ journals that were devoted to a single, urgent question could deliver clear, actionable information straight to the policymakers who need it?
That’s the thinking behind the Pop-Up Journal Initiative, which aims to connect policymakers looking for solid evidence to back fresh policies, with researchers who are collecting the relevant evidence.
With funding of some US$1 million from two non-profit organizations — the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York City and Coefficient Giving in San Francisco, California — the initiative will set up journals that will publish articles focused on a single question for a period of time, roughly a few years, before closing the pop-up journal to submissions.
“I’m less interested in topics than in questions, and I’m less interested in publishing than I am in curation,” says one of the project leaders, Daniel Goroff, who is the vice-president and programme director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
The first pop‑up journal is set to begin publishing this year and will concentrate on a classic economics question: how much growth does investment in research and development (R&D) actually generate?
Goroff says this kind of question is often asked in high-level government discussions, but clear answers are often scarce.
“When I’ve testified before [US] Congress or dealt with an appropriations bill or a budget negotiation, this question, of what is the return on investments when you’re doing R&D, comes up quite often,” says Goroff. “It’s been asked by economists in very formal ways since at least the 1950s, but the data and the methods that were available were really not very strong.”
Most researchers would jump at the chance to get their paper in the hands of the right policymaker — but would they submit their work to a journal that stops publishing after a few years, instead of a more prestigious title?
How it works
Each pop-up journal will be run by an organization, such as a research institution or an academic publisher. The organizations will be selected through a competitive bidding process run by the Pop-Up Journal Initiative’s advisory committee, which currently comprises US and UK academics and economists.
The committee will choose the journal’s central question, but organizations are free to pitch ideas, says Matt Clancy, a programme director at Coefficient Giving, who is based in Des Moines, Iowa. “We want to take bids from all corners, because you never quite know who will have a great idea.”
There are two funding streams: one for the organizations that run the pop-up journals, and another for researchers or institutions that want to conduct studies to submit to the journal.
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Each journal will have a steering committee that coordinates projects, measures progress and, in some cases, commissions papers. The committees will also produce essays that summarize the findings in the papers, as well as from other relevant research, says Goroff.
