Surgical research is adapting very slowly to open scientific practices

It's short JAMA Research Letter in Surgery In December 2023 to evaluate the accreditation of open science by academic circles. Sad because the delay is huge compared to certain specialties. Eight surgical journals were analyzed: JAMA Surgery, Annals of Surgery, British Journal of Surgery, Journal of the American College of Surgeons, Surgery, International Journal of Surgery, World Journal of Surgery, and American Journal of Surgery.

Unused preprints and never opened for peer review

In the corresponding table is information on the eight newspapers and 240 original articles, i.e. 30 articles for each randomly drawn newspaper (published between 1 January 2019 and 11 August 2021). The table is clear: the instructions in the newspapers are fairly modern but the practices are from another era (the 240 article columns). All indicators are very low when analyzing articles…. In short, don't talk to me about open science in surgery!

Free domain for bad research

Here is the first paragraph of the discussion: Surgical research is slowly adapting to open scientific practices in academia, leaving room for poor research quality. We found that surgical guidelines varied in their recommendations for open science practices, and that use of these practices remained low. Lack of advocacy may be related to limited incentives to pursue open science practices and lack of time to do so. To increase the use of these practices, researchers, journals, and policymakers can collaborate to provide incentives such as information and guidance about open science practices and how to use them, and they can advocate for funding structures that require the use of these practices.