Peer review is central to science. But the system is functioning far from perfectly. One issue is that it is difficult to find good reviewers. This was already discussed five years ago on this blog and it was suggested that paying reviewers or making somehow sure that reviewers receive public credit for their efforts might be good ways to alleviate the problem. I agree especially with getting paid, but in my life I’ve only once been offered money to review a research paper. The offer, from a Saudi Arabian journal I had never heard about, surprised me so much that I decided to give it a try. They sent me a terrible paper to review and when I had filed my report, they paid me promptly.

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A problem I often encounter is deciding who to invite as co-authors. On one hand, you want to show appreciation to the people that helped you in the process of obtaining your results. On the other hand, generously adding authors will dilute the contribution of the people that made the largest contribution. In this post I would like to sketch a few hypothetical situations in which someone could be a co-author. The main goal here is to provoke some discussion on this subject, and learn about some good practices.

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This week I received the following email stating “The purpose of this letter is to formally invite you, on behalf of the Organizing Committee, to be the speaker at the upcoming “2nd International Conference on Nanotek and Expo” (Nanotek-2012).” This sounds very much like a desirable invited talk in my area of expertise, nanotechnology. The website of the organizer, OMICS looks good and the organization seems associated with a list of proper scientists as keynote speakers and members.

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Introduction

Science in the 20th century has been divided into a distinct number of more or less separate disciplines ranging from Mathematics and Physics to Biology and Medicine. This distinction was naturally based on the different aspects of our material and living environment under study. In all disciplines one can clearly define ‘core’ subjects which fall in the traditional categories without any overlap with other fields. However, there is an increasing amount of research taking place at the interface or overlapping between disciplines. For a person trained in one of the traditional sciences, it can be hard to look beyond the boundaries and spot opportunities for cross-disciplinary research. This post presents some aspects of multidisciplinary research encountered when starting up a new research line.

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