Commentaire sur RESOLIS publié dans la revue Science

Juillet 2014

Philippe Kourilsky et David Ojcius ont rédigé un commentaire suite au numéro spécial “Science of inequality” publié par la revue Science.

« We wish to add one item to the discussion on the “science of inequality”. We propose that field actors, in public or private organizations, do not share information properly. They do not comply with the golden rule of scientists, namely to make their results broadly available by publishing them after verification by peer review. Scientific fields would not develop, and funding agencies would not work properly without publications. Field actors lack this tradition. It would be highly beneficial to create a “science of field actions” and stimulate publication of results by the practioners themselves, not only by their institutions. We have tested this concept in two steps. First, together with the Veolia Environnement Institute, we created in 2007 the international journal FACTS Reports. Most articles were commissioned since field actors do not submit articles spontaneously, but this process taught us how to identify potential authors and guide them to write manuscripts. Reassured by this experience, we next launched, in 2013, the initiative RESOLIS, with the purpose of gathering verifiable information closer to the field, and reporting the results in a shorter format. The new system has the potential to collect useful and usable information 10 to 100 times faster than for the traditional journal format. Our efforts fit within the larger goal of making better use of science to fight poverty. It requires that field actors make the effort to shape their results into a suitable form for publication, and learn to behave like referees who can evaluate the work of others. It involves providing instructions and often mentoring, which, to date, we have offered to hundreds of field actors. We anticipate that the capitalization of knowledge and good practices along these lines will significantly improve the efficacy of field action.«