For this month’s Editor Spotlight, Dr. Mabel Aworh shares with us her experience of her role as a PLOS ONE Academic Editor…
Editor Spotlight – Maria Berghs
For this month’s Editor Spotlight, Dr. Maria Bergh shares with us her experience of her collaborative approach to research, her editorial process as a PLOS ONE Academic Editor, and the importance of Open Science in her field.
Maria Berghs is an anthropologist with a PhD in sociology and social policy. She works in the field of medical anthropology and sociology, specialising in disability studies and chronic illness. Her research interests include disability, chronic illness, global health (sickle cell and thalassaemia), humanitarianism, ethics, sociology and anthropology of cure, gender and West Africa (Sierra Leone). She has published books, numerous chapters, journal articles and commentary pieces.
The work from your research group impinges on various aspects of real life, such as access to health care, equity, human rights and justice systems. Why is it important for you as a researcher to work alongside authorities and organisations to implement the findings from your research, and how do you balance this with your time for research?
In the United Kingdom, my main job is teaching and I am also a line-manager. I also get some research buyout from my university or if we get a research grant funded as PIs or CO-Is, which is only every few years if we are very lucky. I work in a very small unit that does social science research on the genetic conditions of sickle cell and thalassaemia. This was a unit that was started by my mentor Professor Simon Dyson and whose work I have continued with my colleagues. We focus on producing high quality social science research but that is also applied to improving the quality of peoples’ lives. In England our research and teaching are assessed and we have to engage in continuous development and evaluation. As part of Research Excellence Framework (REF), we have to ensure that our research has impact not just theoretically, methodologically but also for teaching, to improve public knowledge, influence practice, policy and so on. We build those activities into our research time, the university supports through buyout, sometimes small funds and we also try to get such activities properly funded in our grants.
The papers I have written based on trying to educate myself about ontologies and epistemologies from the Global South, have been some of the most widely read and cited papers.
I have been very lucky to have the support of local and global colleagues, people living with the conditions, the voluntary sector, organisations and our clinical colleagues to implement the applied side of our work or to be asked to support them. My mentor always worked with people with the conditions and their organisations, so that they would lead research they wanted, which has happened and why it is implemented. He earned their respect, as research was about things that mattered to them and their families, like education, employment, better health services or social justice. This meant research was used and had impact. My other mentor, Professor Karl Atkin, taught me to invest in the next generation of students and researchers, to review papers, grants, policy papers so that a field grows and becomes diverse, exciting, attracts the best researchers and new leadership. This is especially essential for people living with the conditions and voluntary sector but they are unaware of this aspect to our jobs and much of this work is invisible. In many ways, you are also mimicking the impact of the training and education you received and preparing to leave a field to the next generation with new questions and methods.
I also do research in disability studies and chronic illness more broadly, and I have been very lucky too, to benefit from working with Professor Colin Barnes and Dr. Alison Sheldon who emphasised that social justice research is political and must be led by disabled people to truly be emancipatory. My research was on reparations and post-conflict reintegration of disabilities in Sierra Leone and thus this was an important topic to institutions, the government and local and global organisations. I have to humbly thank the country and people of Sierra Leone and community who supported me by working with me and continue to do that. There was also a strong move from my international colleagues in disability studies to decolonise and question everything theoretically and methodologically. I would like to thank these colleagues from the Global South, such as Professor Tsitsi Chataika, for their leadership in also opening my eyes about the wider inequalities affecting research, publishing and partnership. The papers I have written based on trying to educate myself about ontologies and epistemologies from the Global South, have been some of the most widely read and cited papers. My students and university have also been supportive of efforts of decolonisation. That is largely thanks to leadership from the Global South. That impact has been on my learning and consciousness which has improved my research and is ongoing. Just to say, impact is a big word and sometimes not measurable by everything ‘we’ do but is thanks to many others and it can take years before you understand.
As an Academic Editor for PLOS ONE, what is your approach for evaluating reviewer comments and providing feedback to authors?
My approach is to be a gentle, firm and to the point guide to the reviewers’ comments. Most reviewers take their jobs seriously and are wonderful. Despite this, I know from personal experience that undertaking reviews can be difficult and some reviewers are not always kind, are unintentionally obtuse, too concise or even go overboard in how much they are asking authors to do. Getting reviewers is becoming harder and the process in which papers are matched with reviewers is imperfect at times.
I have also had editors who get too involved in the review process. Personally, I have found this very confusing and unhelpful in the past. I try to learn from my own negative experiences I have had as an author and some of the painful rejections I have gotten. I also try to control my own biases by getting a third reviewer if we have a rejection which can take time but we always do this. We follow our PLOS editorial guidelines and I always assume that the authors are the experts of their papers.
I ensure standards of quality are kept, that we treat work with care and that when reviews are returned, I give short clarification if needed. If I feel it is warranted, I always remind the authors that we are strengthening their paper, working on rigor and note when reviews are supportive. I feel, in that sort of context, authors can push through undertaking difficult revisions and attending to reviewer feedback.
Lastly, I know that many early career researchers or those with exciting ideas are fearful of publishing in case reviewers or editors steal their ideas. Please note that there are also good editors, who are on your side and this is very rare. Editors see what is happening, try to prevent that and even if your paper is rejected, maybe the idea is not there yet, there is a record of your ideas. We always act to ensure our authors will publish better and stronger even if that is not in PLOS.
What aspects of Open Science are most important in your field, and where do you see the next steps for openness in this research area?
In many ways, we have to ensure that our research is open, accessible and available to the public on university repositories, part of databases and transparency is also a part of our ethics and rigour. We became aware of the need and importance of Open Science during the COVID-19 pandemic but that has not always translated to Open Access and more transparency in the way in which we do research. I am also a reviewer and editor for a completely open access journal where authors have the right to see who their reviewer is. My style of reviewing is exactly the same but I have the power and privilege of having an established job and research career. I have noticed as an editor that some academics do not want to engage in this stye of review. They are worried about retaliation and imbalances of power, especially early career researchers who are reviewing more senior colleagues.
More of our work is becoming open and while this means more accessibility and democratization of research, I worry about inequalities between the Global North and South…
We have to be mindful of such imbalances of power in Open Science and try to find solutions. More of our work is becoming open and while this means more accessibility and democratization of research, I worry about inequalities between the Global North and South and those affecting researchers from universities that do not have budgets to publish. I also think this can prevent people with lived experience from leading and controlling research that is important to them. Open Science also depends on universities valuing our work and academics doing the work of editing and reviewing. In a cost-of-living crisis with so many institutions going through difficulties, academics have very high workloads with no time made for this sort of work. This means that participation in Open Science still involves unpaid labour, often done in academics’ spare time. To be truly Open Science, a different model of editing and reviewing will have to emerge to be sustainable long-term. We are also seeing the rise of Artificial Intelligence which may offer some answers but I think long-term, reviewing and editing roles will have to become part of our research frameworks of citizenship at universities and perhaps also paid work that journals will have to reimburse. It will be interesting how those issues are resolved in Open Science.
Disclaimer: Views expressed by contributors are solely those of individual contributors, and not necessarily those of PLOS.