Trust concerns prevalent around academic publishing, studies find

Two separate studies have shown that researchers and journal editors commonly find reasons to doubt the trustworthiness of academic publications.

The academic publisher and information services company Elsevier surveyed researchers about their trust in academic publishing. The survey was carried out together with the charity Sense About Science, which promotes the use of research evidence.

The study reported in late August that 37 per cent of the more than 3,000 respondents said they trusted “none” (1 per cent), “some” (21 per cent) or “about half” (15 per cent) of the research outputs they encountered in the previous week.