Randy Ellis
LightNews LightNews
randalljellis.bsky.social
Randy Ellis
@randalljellis.bsky.social
170 followers 580 following 5 posts
Postdoc at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Biomedical Informatics studying neurodegenerative disease and metascience.
randalljellis.github.io
Posts Replies Media Videos
randalljellis.bsky.social
For comparison, the profits of four publishers (2.64B) amount to 5.58% of the FY2024 NIH budget. Revenues (7.36B) are *15.52%*. I agree with the authors' perspective that funders, governments, and universities should lead efforts to change this. All journals should be diamond open-access.
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 10d
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 13, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
drugmonkey.bsky.social
This may be the most important paper ever published about NIH funded research.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
What if NIH had been 40% smaller?
Replaying history with less NIH funding shows widespread impacts on drug-linked research
www.science.org
September 25, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
lmu-osc.bsky.social
🔍Find out about the replicability crisis across fields & open research initiatives you can implement in your own work!
Attend the “Replicability Crisis” lecture by Prof. Dr. Felix Schönbrodt (@nicebread.bsky.social) on Mon 15 Sept, 9:45-10:45.
👉Register here: www.pretix.osc.lmu.de/lmu-osc/OSSS...
Promotional poster for the LMU Open Science Center Summer School 2025 Public Lecture. The poster features a photo of speaker Prof. Dr. Felix Schönbrodt. The text states the lecture focuses on the replicability crisis and open research initiatives, time and date of lecture being 9:45-10:45 CEST on September 15 2025, and instructions to register online. Logos of LMU Open Science Center, LMU, and Universitätsbibliothek München are displayed at the bottom.
September 8, 2025 at 10:08 AM
randalljellis.bsky.social
This was an absolutely brilliant talk.

SV: “Journal prestige is here to stay, but we shouldn’t give it away for free.”
elisabethbik.bsky.social Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist @elisabethbik.bsky.social · Sep 4
Last talk: Simine Vazire @simine.com, with 'Journal Prestige Can and Should Be Earned'
SV: I wear many hats. As Editor in Chief of Psychological Science I would love my journal name to mean anything, but on the other hand, should we value one journal over another?
#PRC10
Speaker with opening slide
September 5, 2025 at 1:39 AM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
joft.bsky.social
This is what I've been saying since 2023 (image below)

"prediction: use of "AI" [...] will come to be broadly associated with cheating, deception, lack of respect for other people, and low quality work that cannot be trusted in important settings"
September 2, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
davidimiller.bsky.social
🧪 And House appropriators say: no cuts to NIH budget!

House subcommittee version just came out (link below). Holds NIH flat at $48 billion.

To be clear: this is far from over. But a good sign that science still matters across both sides of aisle.

YOUR VOICE MATTERS!!
September 1, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
gershbrain.bsky.social
This is unfortunate:
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...
I wrote to the president of Harvard. I hope other faculty will speak their conscience, even if it means more struggle ahead.
July 29, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
whaleactually.com
Hi folks! Want to reintroduce a thing I'm leading at @cos.io: the Registered Revisions (meta) Trial.

This project about new peer review policy and a WILD new way of doing actionable evidence generation via RCTs. A LOT of RCTs.

Now piloted and ready for the main stage, and looking for partners! 🧵👇
July 28, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
pci-regreports.bsky.social
We're delighted to be part of this new Registered Reports funding partnership - or RRFP - with @improvingpsych.org!

RRFPs boost the efficiency of RRs by integrating grant review and Stage 1 review. Authors submit before they have funding & then receive Stage 1 acceptance + funding at the same time
improvingpsych.org Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) @improvingpsych.org · Jul 7
📣 Call for Proposals: SIPS-PCI Registered Report Funding Partnership!
The Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science and Peer Community In Registered Reports @pci-regreports.bsky.social invite researchers from all areas of psychology to submit empirical research projects for consideration.
July 10, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
njudd.com
New personal record of desk rejects 🥳

I am taking a note of journals that take over a month for the desk 📖

It is also a unusual situation where pretty much everything has been already reviewed at eLife on our Neuro paper (click for open reviews), now the sample size is just substantially larger.
July 1, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
annemscheel.bsky.social
Worth reading in full. Many important implications here:
* Wiley can only publish preprinted papers if final version differs substantially from preprint
* After peer review, preprints are no longer preprints (careful with resubmissions!)
* Wiley will change journal policies without consulting EiC
June 17, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
jntowse.bsky.social
This is just *nuts* from Wiley.
A preprint that has been revised, say following submission & rejection by one journal (ie authors modify and reorient based on reviewer feedback before trying somewhere else) is no longer a preprint?
So only virgin preprints are acceptable to a Wiley journal??
June 17, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
patrickesavage.bsky.social
If Wiley is PCI-hostile, I am now Wiley-hostile. No more reviewing/publishing with them from me.
June 17, 2025 at 11:25 AM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
pci-regreports.bsky.social
NEW: Statement from the PCI RR Managing Board on the withdrawal of Infant and Child Development as a PCI RR-friendly journal, and the decision by Wiley to refuse preprints that have been peer-reviewed by @peercommunityin.bsky.social / @pci-regreports.bsky.social

Read here ➡️ osf.io/tn8mh
In 2024, Infant and Child Development (ICD) withdrew as a PCI RR-friendly journal and reneged on three Stage 1 recommendations issued by PCI RR. In addition, Wiley – the publisher of ICD – notified PCI RR and the PCI core team of its decision to withdraw all Wiley journals from PCI and PCI RR, including an additional 9 PCI-friendly journals. Finally, Wiley appears to have banned all of its ~1600 journals from considering submissions that have been previously reviewed by PCI or PCI RR. This statement explains the history of ICD joining PCI RR and developments that led to the current outcome. The PCI RR Managing Board believes that this shift in policy to become “PCI-hostile” renders Wiley journals incompatible not only with community-based preprint review but with preprint archiving in general.
June 17, 2025 at 7:54 AM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
jamesheathers.bsky.social
Friends, I have news.

It is very good news.

You'll just have to read it, I'm afraid.

jamesclaims.substack.com/p/introducin...
Introducing the Medical Evidence Project
And the quest to make less dead people
jamesclaims.substack.com
June 4, 2025 at 2:32 AM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
avehtari.bsky.social
I'll talk about Bayesian workflow Thu 24th April 11-12 CEST in Learn Bayes seminar by Karolinska Institutet @ki.se learnbayes.se/events/bayes... (zoom available)

The focus will be different to my previous workflow talks (see users.aalto.fi/~ave/videos....). This time more flowcharts and shortcuts
A flowchart. The first box has text "Build a model" and arrow to the second box. The second box has text "Model and prior checking" and arrows to the third and fourth box. The arrow with text "not good" goes to the third box, which has text "Refine model" and an arrow back to the second box. The arrow with text "good" goes to the fourth box, which has text "Use the model".
April 23, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
jnwulff.bsky.social
New pre-print out. We tackle the most common criticisms of NHST and show how to adress them. With NHST 🤯
April 20, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
behrenstimb.bsky.social
April 19, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
dnacurtain.bsky.social
I am a professor at Columbia University. All of the student NIH training grants have been canceled and now there are reports that ALL funding will be frozen. Why are Universities not banding together and speaking out publicly and forcibly about governmental attacks on biomedical research?
April 11, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
devezer.bsky.social
OK I had announced this before but forgot to say that Andrew Gelman would be joining Nancy Cartwright and myself as well. Short idea talks, lots of panel discussion and Q&A.

Join us on April 25th to discuss RCTs, replications, and scientific inference.

sites.google.com/view/cepbi/t...
Mark your calendars for our next online tandem talks in 2025: Experiments, Causal Inference, and Limits of Evidence APRIL 25 at 10Am ET Nancy Cartwright (Durham University, University of California, San Diego) Berna Devezer (University of Idaho) Andrew Gelman (Columbia University)
April 8, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
matthewbjane.bsky.social
The meta-analysis on the relationship between Fluoride and IQ by Taylor et al. (2025) that RFK Jr. has cited contains major methodological flaws and data integrity issues that we describe in the following pre-print (submitted to meta-psychology): osf.io/preprints/os...
April 8, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
dingdingpeng.the100.ci
Okay, I'm not done yet but I have been instructed to head to the #EuroCIM2025 student mixer and I guess you get the idea.

I've been struggling to explain this in talks just working with the equations; I think the figures should make it a lot easier to follow along.
April 8, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
annemscheel.bsky.social
Chuffed and excited to announce a new journal section in Cortex:
*Methods and Assumptions* is open for submissions starting today!

Read the opening editorial here (OA): www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 1/
Methods and Assumptions: A new section in Cortex
www.sciencedirect.com
April 3, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Randy Ellis
ositanwanevu.com
Being snatched off the street for your opinions. I'll say it again. We are deciding, right now, whether the aspirations we hold for this country are finished. Whether we're going to let these hoodlums and grifters throw what's left of the American idea into the garbage for their own profit and gain.
pplscitycouncil.bsky.social People’s City Council - Los Angeles @pplscitycouncil.bsky.social · Mar 26
RUMEYSA OZTURK KIDNAPPING VIDEO

Here is a video of federal agents detaining Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk Tuesday night.

Rumeysa was abducted as she was heading to meet with friends to break her Ramadan fast.
March 26, 2025 at 5:58 PM