Yesterday, Research Professional News committed the cardinal journalistic sin of burying the lede. Halfway down an email with links to the usual smorgasbord of research and innovation related and adjacent news stories was a rather anodyne “Message from our Publisher”. On closer inspection, this was that Research Professional News would be ceasing operations at the end of the calendar year, after over three decades of reporting.
It’s put a lot of livelihoods at risk. And that’s something we’re all too familiar with as a sector. People I’ve not met, or barely or rarely met, yet whose names are familiar and part of everyday professional life. Whose writing and virtual company I’ve enjoyed and benefited from.
But beyond the personal, I think this is a serious problem. It’s not just a pity or a shame or a loss – although it is all of those things.
It’s more than that. If you’re reading this, you probably already agree. I’m going to have a go at articulating why. This is a pretty rapid response, and so forgive typos, half formed thoughts, and omissions.
Cards on the table. As a semi-regular contributor to Research Professional (usually Funding Insight, occasionally elsewhere) and occasional quotee in news stories, I have a personal and financial interest in its continued existence. I’m paid a modest fee for my writing, and this forms the lion’s share of my portfolio of external work that provides some cushion against the sector-wide annual real terms pay cut. I don’t think this colours my view, but I want to be transparent.
Put simply, every sector needs specialist, independent media coverage, and without RPN, we won’t have that.
Why does it matter? Here’s the value added…
Providing quick, concise, accurate summaries of new developments.
Before you or I have had chance to read and digest a new announcement and consider its implications, journalists with specialist sector knowledge and experience have filtered and filleted it for your quick consumption. In my experience, these summaries are very high quality in terms of accuracy and insight.
Do they pick out absolutely everything an insider sector specialist might pick out? No. Would that same sector specialist be able to write a high-level summary concisely and quickly? Also no. And do I always have time to go back and read the source in detail for myself? Also, also no.
Holds power to account and provides challenge.
‘Democracy dies in darkness’ is perhaps a grandiose response to the closure of a trade journal, but it is nevertheless true. Perhaps it’s better to say that every day becomes a good day to bury bad news if no-one is digging for it, wiping off the dirt, and shouting: “look at this bad news, everyone. Here are the thoughts of a bunch of other people who think it’s bad, and the response of the people who did the bad thing when we asked them why they did it!”
I don’t want to pick on UKRI here… this could be about any sector body. But the fact is that they hold pretty much all the power in their relationship with institutions. They have money. We want to spend it on research. We pull our punches. We grumble to ourselves. We tread carefully. A precondition of approval for my external work is that I don’t “slag off any funders”.
I’ve heard several UKRI staff say things like “just get in touch” and “our door is always open” and “we really want to hear from the community” as if these things are straightforward. If we do, we tend to do it with kid gloves, we don’t get tend to get the answers we want (or the action we need), and often we’re just fobbed off or ignored entirely. That’s how power works. It’s… no worries if not….
And… to be fair… why should they answer my question and give me and my institution privileged access to information that others don’t have? But when journalists ask, those answers will be written up for all to see, and if answers aren’t provided, that’s noted too.
To be clear, I’m not saying that there’s going to be a run on Champagne in the off-licenses of Swindon in response to this news. One former UKRI employee said on Bluesky described RPN as “always an important challenge”.
All of us… individually or institutionally… do better when we’re held to account, and all of us get sloppy, lazy, complacent and selfish without oversight and mechanisms for feedback and challenge. Otherwise we start doing the easy thing, or the convenient thing, rather than the right thing. And the more power we possess, the worse that tendency gets and the more serious the results.
Summarise sector opinion and reaction
A staple of RPN’s output has been opinion pieces which weave together comments and quotes from on a particular topic. Here’s one, in which I’m quoted saying something I probably shouldn’t have done about stupid Researchfish’s stupid name. These are a lot more work than they appear – the quotes used are often the tip of the iceberg in terms of the underlying work to establish the range of views on any given topic. But this sharing of what others are thinking about, and what they think of it is very important.
But if UKRI (or someone else) does something we don’t like, we don’t really have any choice but to grumble. We can’t straightforwardly… and quickly… coordinate with other institutions and coordinate a response. Because we’re atomised, we might even wonder if it’s such a big deal anyway. These pieces are the antidote to gaslighting – yes, this is happening, and yes, it matters.
Provides a platform
A lot of people have written for Research Professional. It’s provided an important platform for diverse voices across the sector, and has been especially strong on research culture. The platform and reach (and editorial support) have helped inform and drive debate. Without that common platform and common publicity for it, how do we find what’s important? We can’t rely on social media ecosystems to filter quality content any more (if we ever could)
Without a common platform, it’s just a lot of people with individual Substacks. Or worse…. blogs. Like someone from the past. Ahem.
Research Professional News is the Story
Let’s consider a real-world example. Research Professional News is – for obvious reasons – not reporting on the impending closure of Research Professional News. Instead, we have a bland corporate statement from a Clarivate Senior Vice President. That’s not a good sign… Senior Vice Presidents are always baddies, right?
There is no-one to ask what “past content will remain available and freely accessible” means, given that it operates a paywall at present. Or how potentially misleading, outdated content might be managed.
There is no-one to ask how hopes that RPM will “continue its legacy of informing and supporting the research community long after publication ends” can possibly be realised.
There is no-one to challenge Clarivate (market cap $1.48bn) on financial claims about affordability. No-one to ask about whether institutional subscription rates have held up or not. No-one to ask universities about whether they subscribed for the funding database or for the news and comment, or for both. No-one to outline the evolution of a token news function attached to a major funding database through to a multi-award-winning news and comment organisation… attached to a major funding database.
No-one to speculate on what might be next. Whether WonkHE – primarily higher-level comment and analysis with less focus on research – might up its research news game. No-one to wonder whether RPN might continue in another organisational form, or with a new business model. No-one to try to give an overview of the evolution of the media landscape, from the retreat of Times Higher as the house journal of the sector to rankings, reputations, and rage bait. No-one to tell me if that last sentence is unfair or not.
No-one to report on any potential efforts to reverse the decision, or find some other alternative. Individual journalists are – unsurprisingly – saying relatively little on social media other than acknowledging that it’s happening and thanking people for their sympathy/kind words. It feels like a fait accompli, but we don’t know, because there’s no-one to report it.
No-one to report on any call to action or protect or complaint or response. And it’s here that I was thinking about setting up some kind of petition or something, before deciding against it.
Because I just don’t know enough about what’s going on to work out what – if anything – might be effective. Or whether it’s all over bar the shouting, hopefully some best-of, celebratory stuff. And Robin and Sophie doing what Robin and Sophie do, in spite of everything.
Instead, what I’m going to suggest is this:
If you have an institutional subscription, find out who the contact is. And ask about whether we’ve been consulted about this or not. About whether there’s been any communication. About what we think about it… if we have a settled view. If it’s likely to affect renewals.
I’m going to do this too, because I have no idea.
Because I think – without any media to do the job for us – we have to fall back on our power as customers to at least find out what’s going on. And what, if anything, might be done about it.
