Publishing research in scientific journals is rarely a problem for industry-sponsored studies with plenty of money behind them. But for purely academic studies, or those by small businesses and startups, the costly submission charges, lengthy peer-review processes, and high rejection rates can act as significant barriers to publication.
Wouldn’t it be great if an alternative publishing model was available? Scientist Philipp Koellinger – Professor of economics and social science genetics at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam – certainly thought so. Frustrated with the restrictive models offered by traditional journals for sharing results, he had a vision to improve the quality and accessibility of science at scale.
His brainchild, DeSci Labs, is a software engineering research and development company. The team created DeSci Publish, an AI-driven, open access science publishing infrastructure.We caught up with Koellinger to hear all about it.
What inspired you to create DeSci Labs?
DeSci Labs was founded to address the challenges within the current scientific publishing system. Amongst other things, I got frustrated with the replication crisis in science, which I see as a symptom of more fundamental problems in how we incentivize, practice, and share science.
After encountering results in high-impact journals that I was skeptical about, I discovered, on several occasions, that the original results were not replicable – an issue that hinders progress and erodes trust in science.
Unfortunately, this is a widespread phenomenon. For example, researchers at biotechnology firm Amgen found they could replicate only six out of 53 “landmark” cancer studies published in high-impact journals. These challenges motivated the creation of a publishing solution that prioritizes transparency and accessibility and makes open science easier and more rewarding.
I love being a professor and researcher, but I see a big opportunity, in starting DeSci Labs, to make an impact beyond my own field of research.
What sets it apart from existing publication models?
DeSci Labs transforms the publishing model with Diamond Open Access, removing paywalls and publication charges while allowing scientists to publish and review papers, data, and code in one place. Researchers can instantly share their findings, get direct AI analytics of their work (e.g. novelty scores and related research), and update their work over time – creating a transparent track record of how they arrived at their results.
Soon, we will launch a token system that will reward referees for fast, high-quality reviews. This will reduce the waiting times for authors to get qualified feedback on their work and help editors find good referees.
Traditional publishers often lock authors into restrictive contracts, for example, by claiming copyrights on publications or owning journal titles and impact factors. DeSci Publish gets rid of these shackles, giving control back to the scientific community.
To preserve the scientific record, DeSci Publish uses persistent identifiers for every version of every file, avoiding issues like broken links or content drift. This not only protects research but also enhances its quality and impact.
By leveraging AI and Web3 technology, we aim to accelerate scientific progress by making the publishing process easier, faster, fairer, and more transparent. This is facilitated by a decentralized infrastructure that entirely runs on open-source software. This makes the existence of what we build independent from our company – and places its continuity largely in the hands of the global community.
Why is it important that alternatives like DeSci Publish exist?
The traditional system is not only incredibly expensive but also slow, unfair, and unable to self-correct.
Alternatives like DeSci Publish enable free and rapid sharing of research outputs. They also incentivize fast, open, and high-quality peer review of publicly shared papers, data, and code, which has the potential to accelerate scientific progress.
Furthermore, there is a lack of rewards for researchers to do the right things. For example, instead of researchers donating their time to highly profitable publishers to review the work of their peers for free, we should give every scientist a budget they can use to get their own work reviewed, with the ability to top up their budget by doing referee work for other scientists. This creates a fairer set of incentives for peer review and allows editors to reward fast and high-quality feedback to the authors.
Our ability to progress as a species and solve problems depends heavily on science, which therefore needs to be accessible, transparent, and reliable. At the moment, it is falling short on all of these dimensions.
How might the platform serve the pathology community?
Pathology, like many scientific disciplines, relies heavily on access to high-quality, reproducible research to advance diagnostic methods and treatments. DeSci Labs’ focus on transparency and novelty scoring could help pathologists quickly identify groundbreaking studies and emerging trends in their field.
As our community continues to grow, we’re eager to collaborate with researchers and practitioners in pathology to demonstrate how our tools can support their work. We welcome inquiries and partnerships to explore this exciting opportunity further.
What’s the future for DeSci Labs – and for science publication in general?
The trend towards open science and greater transparency will continue. The existing business models of commercial publishers – and the problematic incentives they create for scientists – will come under increasing scrutiny and pressure.
In 2025, DeSci Publish will launch its first journal and release additional AI features that speed up the publication and discovery of new research. We will also launch a token-based reward system for fast, high-quality peer review. We will make all these services available to all scientists, even if they aim to publish in a traditional journal.
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