12-minute read

Dermot Feenan

LLB MA LLM Barrister-at-Law FRSA

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The first news of Professor Jim Newell’s dismissal appeared on Twitter in mid-July 2018. Newell, who had worked for the University of Salford, England, for 27 years, was, according to numerous accounts, a respected scholar and a good teacher. According to a petition calling for his reinstatement, he was dismissed unfairly. After conducting my own research, I signed the petition. One of the tweets replying to the news noted that just after Newell’s dismissal, he was approached by The Conversation, an online platform for publishing academic research, for an article. The Conversation, when they learned that he had been dismissed, withdrew on the grounds that he was no longer employed by the university. 

The withdrawal was striking. Newell had published 5 monographs (two are forthcoming), 11 edited volumes, 44 journal articles and 48 book chapters. In addition, he is the founding editor of the journal Contemporary Italian Politics. Many signatories to the petition attested to his standing in the research community. The recent shift to the far right in Italian politics meant that analysis by scholars like Newell was essential. 

A number of academics called for boycott of The Conversation, which reminded me of my own concerns with the platform. I set out these concerns in this essay. I also reflect on broader issues raised by The Conversation’s approach to academic publishing. 

Background 

In 2017, I pitched an article to The Conversation. I’d written for them before while employed at another university. The pitch in 2017 was made while I was an affiliated researcher at a national centre for the pursuit, support and promotion of research in the humanities. The centre’s research was invariably internationally excellent or world class. My own research had been independently assessed in several REF (Research Excellence Framework) exercises as internationally excellent. 

The response from The Conversation was concerning. They said:

‘Alas, we are inundated with pitches from our member universities and have to prioritise those, so I can’t take this one on I’m afraid. Sorry to disappoint! I know that we’ve talked to [the name of my institution] about getting them to join us formally, so if you’re in touch with anyone in the press office do mention that we’re very much still interested in making it happen.’ 

The thrust of the reply from The Conversation indicated that the real reason for not considering the pitch was that I was not in a ‘member’ organisation – a reason for rejection which was confirmed by the subsequent story about Jim Newell. At the time I pitched, and unbeknownst to myself, my centre was not a ‘member’ of The Conversation. However, the reply from The Conversation appeared not only to be disingenuous in stating as a reason that they were ‘inundated’ but it inappropriately sought to advance its pay-the-publisher model. 

As an academic, the nudge from The Conversation to act as a middleman or as a media broker didn’t sit well.  Disturbed, I looked into The Conversation. What I found gives rise to a number of concerns. In summary, these pertain to The Conversation’s: (i) claim to independence, (ii) claim to facilitate free-flow of information, (iii) its conflict of interest disclosures, (iv) its practices of commissioning and receiving submissions, and (v) adherence to its charitable purpose. The business model underpinning The Conversation raises further concerns about the broader economic and regulatory context within which academic research is produced – upon which I touch briefly in my conclusion. 

Concerns 

(i) Claim to independence

The Conversation states on its website that it is “an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public”.  It underpins this reference to independence by adding, as follows: “Access to independent, high quality, authenticated, explanatory journalism underpins a functioning democracy.” 

Acceptance of research on the basis that the researcher’s employer pays The Conversation means that the publisher is not independent. It is clearly dependent on paying institutions. It will accept research only from those who pay. The latest annual accounts of The Conversation Trust (UK) Ltd. (for 2016-2017), show that membership subscriptions constituted 93.4% of income for The Conversation (UK). 

The Conversation (UK) also has a relationship with City University, University of London, which could give rise to reasonable concerns regarding independence and potential conflict of interest.

City University provides office space and utilities to The Conversation as ‘gifts in kind’. In 2014, these amounted to £20,000. By 2017, this had grown to £60,000. City joined The Conversation on 22 March 2013 as a founding partner. Professor Paul Curran, Vice Chancellor (as he then was) of City University, was made a trustee of The Conversation in January 2014.

He stated: 

“The Conversation will provide City’s academics with a new and innovative way of communicating directly with the public. We are passionate about our research and The Conversation will enable us to communicate its importance and potential impact in an accessible and relevant way.”

In 2014, City University reported that since the launch of The Conversation the university’s staff had the second highest number of authors among member institutions published on the platform. 

Curran – later made President of the University – notes on his institutional webpage the status as founding chair of the board of trustees of The Conversation. In 2016, he was knighted for “services to higher education”. 

(ii) Claim to facilitate free-flow of information

The Conversation states: “We believe in open access and the free-flow of information.” The Conversation cannot, however, provide ‘free-flow of information’ when ability to pay becomes a condition of dissemination.

The Conversation also stated (as of 22 July 2018) that it “features articles from experts at 2078 universities and research institutes—from around the world”. 

Yet, it publishes articles only from its ‘members’. It would appear that in exchange for their contribution, the ‘members’ are permitted to advertise on The Conversation website. These ads will be well-known to those with a keen eye for vapidity or hyperbole. Take this example from the University of East London (UEL): “Today, UEL is a forward-thinking place of learning which embraces new technology and innovative ways of teaching but which remains rooted in its local community” (see below). 

(iii) Conflict of interest disclosures

The Conversation states on its website, under the heading ‘10 Ways We Are Different’, the following way it believes it is different: “We are transparent: every author discloses their expertise, funding, and conflicts of interest.” 

Each author for The Conversation is required to complete a ‘Disclosure statement’ along the following lines: “[Author name] does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment” (emphasis added). Upon submitting my one-and-only (co-authored) article to The Conversation I was confused by this formulation. On reflection, it is clear that the author’s organisation always benefits from publication – that is the business model upon which The Conversation is built: you pay us, we’ll seek to publish your employees’ research. 

Corroborating evidence for this arrangement can be found in, for example, the following statement by the University of Oxford regarding the benefits to the University in its deal with The Conversation (see below): 

Might The Conversation’s position itself create a conflict of interest? According to the Guidelines on Good Publication Practice produced by the Committee on Publication Ethics: “Conflicts of interest comprise those which may not be fully apparent and which may influence the judgment of author, reviewers, and editors. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived.” The guidelines were introduced in an “attempt to define best practice in the ethics of scientific publishing”. The guidelines go on to state: “Editors’ decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based only on the paper’s importance, originality, and clarity, and the study’s relevance to the remit of the journal.” 

Clearly, editors at The Conservation will accept copy only from institutional members. Given that The Conversation’s revenue stream comes principally from those members, it is reasonable to believe that editorial judgment could potentially be affected by The Conversation’s reliance on this revenue stream, notwithstanding a statement in The Conversation’s ‘Charter’ that it will: “Protect editorial freedom in all commercial agreements” (emphasis in original). 

Further potential conflict-of-interest concerns are raised by the presence on the Board of Trustees of Ziyad Marar, Global Publishing Director of SAGE – which publishes more than 1,000 journals and over 800 new books each year. SAGE is one of the funders of The Conversation. On its web listing of Trustees, The Conversation does not mention that SAGE is one of its funders. Under Marar’s name and affiliation, it states: “Other Interests/ affiliations that may conflict with The Conversation UK: None” (see below). 

One of the legal obligations of any trustee is to act in the best interests of the charity. This requires preventing any personal interests from conflicting (or appearing to conflict) with those interests of the charity. Conflicts of interest can include where a trustee is involved in a business which enters into a financial transaction with the charity. 

(iv) Adherence to its charitable purpose

The Conversation must also act according to the objects of a charity, which, for The Conversation, include “communication of all academic disciplines”. Given that The Conversation does not accept articles from those not employed in organisations who might otherwise wish to communicate research within their academic discipline, the publisher is behaving inconsistently with this object. 

(v) Practices of commissioning and receiving submissions

The Conversation secures copy principally through pitches from authors or by soliciting articles. The solicitation of articles involves editorial staff at The Conversation contacting researchers directly to contribute or through The Conservation sending daily emails seeking comment pieces on topical issues to each member institution – who can identify researchers and put them in touch with the relevant editor at The Conversation. 

None of The Conversation’s 21-strong editorial team are academics. They invariably have a background in journalism, some in trade publications. For instance, Jane Wright, Commissioning Editor Scotland, worked for Eurostar’s magazine. A significant number of the editorial team also worked in newspapers which many academics would abhor. In addition to Wright, Matt Warren, Deputy Editor, and Luke Salkeld, Commissioning Editor, worked at The Daily Mail. Paul Keaveny, Commissioning Editor, was a news reporter for The Sun. 

USS Briefs, by contrast, which also publishes articles written by university staff, has a team of 17 academic members of staff. 

Concerns about the broader economic and regulatory context within which academic research is produced

The foregoing concerns about The Conversation resonate with concerns among academics about the economy of academic publishing when inimical to the dissemination of research or the interests of researchers. These concerns are pronounced regarding large multinational corporations profiting on a vast scale from academic labour, the extraction of annual subscriptions from publicly-funded institutions, and the keeping of research behind paywalls. 

In May 2018, for instance, more than 3,000 researchers signed a statement refusing to submit, review or edit for a new for-profit subscription journal Nature Machine Intelligence from Nature Publishing Group, whose parent company, Springer Nature, reported revenues of EUR 1.64 billion in 2017. Some of these researchers had already formed a new no-fee, open-access journal: Journal of Machine Learning Research. 

Many academic publishers make huge profits out of academic labour. Elsevier, the world’s largest academic publisher, reported profits in 2017 of more than £900 million, with unchanged margins of 36.8% on the previous year. Informa, which encompasses academic publishers Routledge and Taylor & Francis Group, reported revenue of £1,757.6 million in 2017, with an adjusted operating profit up 33.3% on 2016. 

Much of this profit goes to shareholders. Senior executives are paid in millions. While The Conversation is not-for-profit, the latest annual accounts for its UK edition show in 2016 payments to one employee in the £60,000-£70,000 band and another in the £70,000-£80,000 band. This is considerably above the mean average full-time salary within the university sector (£40,449 in 2015-16). 

The business model adopted by The Conversation treats the researcher as valuable vis-à-vis its revenue stream. There is no recognition within this model of respect for the uniqueness of each researcher as researcher, including the quality of research, outside member-employed/ PhD status. 

Indeed, this business model will likely leave the precarious worker especially with a dilemma: whether to attempt during short-term contracts labour-intensive articles for REF or seek to take advantage of quick publication on these online platforms to show some output. This labour, as Josh Bowsher, writing as a precarious academic, notes, is no doubt done through hours of unpaid work. Those most likely to publish on such platforms in such perverse conditions tend to be those in secure employment, which further skews the production and circulation of knowledge away from those with direct and immediate experience of precarity. 

Indeed, The Conversation’s reifying of a particular type of ‘expertise’ as a tool to facilitate its business model through the ‘Research and Expert Database’ (see below), raises serious questions as to how research competence is assessed and whether journalists are best placed to judge what counts as academic research. 

A troubling example of this judgment arises in the response from The Conversation to a pitch from Martha Schulman in April 2018. Schulman, a PhD candidate at the University of Kent, England, offered an article on precarity in employment in higher education. The pitch followed the recent strike action by staff at many universities in the United Kingdom regarding proposed changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme. 

Schulman was one of many precarious academic staff at the University of Kent organising for better working and learning conditions. Schulman, talking to me afterwards, said, “the strike gave an opportunity to meet, talk and organise around exploitative conditions, and transformed the epistemic basis of our research and broader scholarly commitments.” 

“My intention in submitting the pitch was to provide an account of the experiences of a collective at the University known as ‘Precarious@KentUni’,” she added. 

Holly Squire, Commissioning Editor at The Conversation, replied to Schulman’s pitch as follows: 

“Unfortunately we won’t be able to take this forward as we are quite strict that articles about the higher education system for The Conversation are written by academics whose research specialism is higher education policy and practice, or is within the relevant area.”  

In fact, nowhere on its website does The Conversation make it explicit or ‘strict’ that “articles about the higher education system should be written by academics whose research specialism is higher education policy and practice” still less that any article meet the vacuous criterion of being “within the relevant area”. 

Rather, The Conversation provides two points of information for the prospective contributor. First, through its ‘Become an author’ page. This page states: 

“To be published by The Conversation you must be currently employed as a researcher or academic with a university or research institution. PhD candidates under supervision by an academic can write for us.” 

Schulman’s pitch to The Conversation showed that she was a PhD candidate. She also teaches, and the University of Kent School of English website lists her under its ‘Assistant and Associate Lecturers’. 

The second point of information for prospective contributors on The Conversation’s webpages is through its pitch page (see below): 

Schulman was offering evidence-based analysis. That ‘evidence’ was her experience and that of other precarious workers, which was not then adequately captured by official mechanisms. Such a source of evidence is essential to research. Its exclusion reflects a narrow definition of research. Where the base touches on matters of a political nature – such as the USS-related strike action – it is reasonable to speculate whether the exclusion also reflects political opposition to the source. 

The business model adopted by The Conversation also disadvantages those institutions who cannot pay. This is more likely to adversely impact academic institutions with fewer resources, especially in the Global South. Currently, The Conversation publishes seven editions, in: Australia (with an editor also for New Zealand), the United Kingdom, United States, Africa, France, Canada, and Indonesia. While many funding organisations and academics recognise the need to redress the historical disadvantages experienced by academic institutions in the Global South, The Conversation’s approach is limited. Moreover, each edition promotes on its national platform only research within that nation (or for Africa only on that continent) – which is inimical to best practice in research. These are further reasons to question the claims made by The Conversation about what it is about. 

The institution-based pay-the-publisher model also means that paradigm-shifting research by intellectual giants from history such as Galileo, Rousseau, Darwin, and Nietzsche would, if they were around today, never be accepted by The Conversation. And, contemporary scholars such as David Olusoga – black author of the award-winning book Black and British: A Forgotten History and, in my view, the best commentator in the BBC’s recent series Civilisations – would not be considered, despite his ability. This raises an associated concern: the disproportionate impact that The Conversation’s restriction has on researchers who, by virtue of their race/ethnicity, nationality, gender, disability or sexual orientation are less likely to be in academic employment. For instance, in 2016-2017 black academics constituted only 1.67% of all academic staff in the United Kingdom, much lower than their representation within the workforce generally.  

With all members paying for the opportunity for publication of their researchers’ self-generated, lightly-edited copy, we tend then to get superficial pieces such as “Inside Out: What Universities Can Learn from Pixar About Emotions”. 

The Conversation’s restriction in accepting research from employees (or PhD students) within universities also precludes research from those academic disciplines which have been closed within some universities, not for their intellectual value generally, but because they are no longer cost-effective to run within the university. 

While The Conversation has undoubtedly expanded dissemination of research for some public good, its restrictions show little regard to the prevailing context of higher education, and, because of this, it becomes part of the problem with the neoliberal direction of travel in academia. 

Those of us who are serious about liberating the university from neoliberal control and reinserting academic values need to radically overhaul one of the key elements in the infrastructure of higher education – control of publishing. Digital publishing offers unprecedented opportunities to break the dominance of the large academic publishers and their global parent companies. However, the interests principally of capital must be faced.

Robert Maxwell, the late-chairman of the hugely profitable Pergamon Press predicted in 1988 that in a future of electronic publishing there would be only a small number of publishers who, with no printing costs, could make “pure profit”. As always, we confront the issue of who profits.

Academics need to step in and fill the gap currently occupied by for-profit publishers and salaried journalists. We also need to re-value academic work in all its rich and myriad quality and inventiveness, including from unsalaried researchers, and through short notes; explainers; long-form essays; op eds; interviews; data-rich surveys; and pioneering new forms. The business model at The Conversation should be put to rest. Until it is, I will no longer consider contributing. Instead, I will seek to continue to publish in places that value all researchers, especially in those places that recognise both the challenges faced by the precarious worker and the political economy of knowledge.

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© Dermot Feenan 2018