Death of academic journal greatly exaggerated, says ERC president

It is very difficult Corona virus

Because many people died

Because many people died

Because many people died

This is an interesting discussion, but I think it confuses two different issues: First is what a given scholarly community prefers as its primary mode of dissemination and communication (e.g., via traditional peer-reviewed journals; preprint servers...or some combination thereof). Second regards how one might best build a lively and engaged community within scholarly disciplines - one that has the ability to improve manuscripts and the conduct of research, as well as detect and correct errors made along the way.

I wish it wasnt so. “What a journal does is build community" Journals that charge nearly £700+ pounds for submission creates what kind of community exactly? Community of the rich?

While open access is a great idea in principle it is going the same way as the internet where there is too much information for it to be properly collated and there are not enough people who have enough expertise to properly critique all that is out there. As a result the scientific literature is becoming devalued because it is not being properly filtered. Scientific publishing started out as society journals. These were then mostly taken up by publishers who found a profitable margin. Open access then came along but the scientific community still ends up doing all the work, writing, reviewing editing etc. and also has to pay for the privilege. Publishers are still making money out of it, although less than previously, but the value of the literature has declined with all sorts of players entering the market. Scientific publishing is not an ecological system - to the uninitiated and non-expert the dregs at the bottom look the same as the well researched and written finding. Pressure to publish from institutions keen to have "metrics" for their staff is also to blame but open access is not the panacea everyone hoped it would be.

An Open Peer Evaluation Network is achievable with todays technology. There are some well written articles on how to do this. It needs funding of course but above all a change in mind set. Research should not be a zero sum game where which depends on getting a place on limited journal real estate. This constraint on real estate is deliberately created for vested interests. This should go. It may not happen in my lifetime as the incentives for keeping the system alive are still very large.. but it will go. It will surely go.