This blog has been somewhat quiet lately because I have been busy travelling, attending conferences and meeting with some of our clients in China and Japan. Sorry about the lack of posts during that time—I hope to be able to write many more over the coming months. Anyway, I spent the last two weeks of September in China giving presentations (on writing scientific papers) at Peking University, Peking Union Medical College, Capital Medical University and a Science Press conference in Hangzhou, as well as making a video of my full-length presentation, parts of which will be used on this blog and all of which will soon be available on our websites. I also spent a few days in Shanghai attending a major international conference on clinical trials in China. Then, I was back in China again in October for more presentations and also to attend the Shanghai International Science Journal Summit. Thus, my time in China enabled me to meet with all three types of our clients: researchers, journal editors and pharma/biotech, and also to get a good understanding of China's STM publishing environment.
I have to say I was completely blown away by the response of the academic researchers who came to my presentations. The level of interest clearly showed the need for such presentations at institutions throughout China. Lecture theatres were packed. After three and a half years of operating in China, it was really nice for us to be able to give something back to the community and help researchers to improve the quality of their papers (and hopefully their chances of getting their papers accepted for publication). Although all of the content seemed to be helpful and gratefully received, researchers seemed especially interested in the parts on identifying an appropriate target journal, writing a good discussion, and dealing with peer review comments. These topics will all be covered in this blog over time.
For the first time, in Hangzhou, I adapted my presentation to make it suitable for an audience of journal editors. Much of the content of the author-focused presentation was relevant to Chinese journal editors wanting to identify good papers that will be highly cited. Additional content on managing peer review and publication ethics was added for that audience. Although researchers represent our main client base in China, journals represent a non-trivial and growing proportion of our clients, and some of the future blog posts here will be aimed at those clients.
I’m always really pleased to visit China, to travel to different cities and speak at different institutes there. There is a real enthusiasm and excitement among researchers and journal editors, and I can sense the desire to have Chinese research widely recognized for its quality and not just its quantity. I hope the posts I have made and will make here will help some of those members of the scientific community to achieve that.