NeuroEdit's weekly roundup of biomedical publishing news

Post by Julia Slone-Murphy | Photo by Macau Photo Agency on Unsplash

28 February – 6 March
This week, ​Coronavirus (COVID-19) dominates, China moves to tackle its harmful publish or perish culture and, in lighter news, how art can contribute to science.     

Biomedical publishers and scientific organisations rally against COVID-19
Hat tip to the European Association of Science Editors for bringing these resources to our attention.

• Elsevier has a free information centre for COVID-19 with resources including guidelines for clinicians and patients. In addition, it has made every research article related to Coronavirus, SARS and MERS freely available! 
• Springer Nature has also created a COVID-19 information hub and encourages authors to share their submitted research in preprints as well as sharing raw data on the subject whenever possible. 
• Nature is posting the latest updates on the disease on a dedicated news page.  
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have made their webinar on COVID-19 that was held yesterday free to access. The webinar is targeted at physicians, nurses, pharmacists, veterinarians, physician assistants, health educators and other clinicians. 
• And Clarivate Analytics is offering free resources and content on the disease, including a downloadable overview covering causes, symptoms, transmission, mortality, prevention and treatment.  

FENS 2020 is going ahead, for now
FENS has issued a statement on COVID-19. It has confirmed that the FENS Forum 2020 in Glasgow in July is still going ahead, at least for now, ​but they will be monitoring the situation and following guidance from the NHS, the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. However, FENS does advise arranging cancellation insurance when booking travel. 

With a new ban in place, will Chinese research perish?
China's science and education ministries have instructed its research institutions to stop paying bonuses for publishing in journals. Such initiatives have resulted in researchers focusing on quantity over quality of papers, and may have contributed to a rise in fraud, plagiarism and unethical citation practices. While many researchers have welcomed the ban, critics are concerned that it will reduce the country's notable competitiveness in research. 

Art and science go hand-in-hand
A beautiful article in the Careers column in Nature explains how an artist residency in a research lab can have surprising benefits for everyone involved. Have you ever considered working with an artist? The researcher and artist who co-authored this column give some excellent tips for making such a collaboration a positive experience for both parties.