By SORTEE | June 27, 2022
[SORTEE member voices is a weekly Q&A with a different SORTEE member]
Name: Matt Lloyd Jones.
Date: 09 July 2021.
Position: Postdoctoral Research Associate.
Research and/or work interests: Systematic review and meta-analysis in microbial invasion ecology.
How did you become interested in open research?
Through meeting like-minded folk.
What’s an open science practice or topic that you’ve changed your views on within the last few years? Why?
HARKing; it’s essentially taught as a skill in a lot of PhDs, and I only realised it was an issue when meeting open-science folk.
If you had the power to change one thing about current research practices in your field, what would it be?
Demolish the current publishing system.
Do you see any downsides to some open research practices?
I think sometimes they go a bit overboard/try to force everything on people all at once, and we need to recognise that the burden is often placed on overworked researchers without an obvious incentive. Sometimes the problem needs to be tackled higher up (see answer to above…).
What is an open / reliable / transparent science practice that you admire but have not yet adopted in your own work?
Code integrated into manuscripts/interactive manuscripts.
Where were you born and raised?
Cardiff, UK.
What’s the last book that affected the way you currently think about things?
Jon Ronson’s ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’.
What was your worst kitchen disaster?
Not quite kitchen, but I once flooded a whole bar to knee-deep level…
Tell us about one of your hobbies.
Homebrewing, staying as social as I can, DJing now and then.
What do you now know about the way science gets done that you would have found surprising before you started your training as a scientist?
We pay journals to publish our mostly-publicly-funded research … and pay make it free … and pay to read that research.
Where to find you online?:
Twitter: @befriendabacter University of Exeter Researchgate Google Scholar
