Publishing more than reviewing? Some ethical musings on the sustainability of the peer review process

Based on our editorial experience, and acknowledging the regular editor grievances about reviewer disengagement at professional meeting and conferences, in this article we argue that the review system is in need of significant repair. We argue that this has emerged because an audit culture in academia and individual incentives (like reduced teaching loads or publication bonuses) have eroded the willingness of individuals to engage in the collective enterprise of peer-reviewing each others’ work on a quid pro quo basis. In response to this, we emphasise why it is unethical for potential reviewers to disengage from the review process, and outline the implications for our profession if colleagues publish more than they review. Designed as a political intervention in response to reviewer disengagement, we aim to ‘politicise’ the review process and its consequences for the sustainability of the scholarly community. We propose three pathways towards greater reviewer engagement: (i) senior scholars setting the right kind of ‘reviewer’ example; (ii) journals introducing recognition awards to foster a healthy reviewer progression path and (iii) universities and accreditation bodies moving to explicitly recognise reviewing in workload models and evaluations. While all three proposals have merit, the latter point is especially powerful in fostering reviewer engagement as it aligns individual and institutional goals in ‘measurable’ ways. In this way, ironically, the audit culture can be subverted to address the imbalance between individual and collective goals.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC-PROFESSIONAL MEETING AT THE APPELLATE COURT IN NIŠ WITHIN THE PROJECT "STRENGTHENING THE PROBATION AND THE SYSTEM OF ALTERNATIVE SANCTIONS IN MONTENEGRO AND SERBIA" NIŠ, 4TH DECEMBER 2018

In the broadest sense, alternative sanctions are criminal law measures that substitute a prison sentence. They are practically parapenal sanctions considering that they lack the actual effectiveness inherent in classical punishment, which is expressed as a complete restriction of some rights or material values. The paper provides an overview of an international scientific-professional meeting of experts held at the Appellate Court in Niš, within the project "Strengthening the Probation and the Alternative Sanctions System in Montenegro and Serbia". Participants of the meeting were members of the Dutch delegation, as well as Serbian judges, public prosecutors, and probation officers. During the presentation of the project and the exchange of opinions and experiences on the application of alternative sanctions in both Netherlands and Serbia, numerous essential questions have been raised regarding the purpose of punishment, the achieved results, and the problems arising in everyday practice in the application of alternative sanctions.

Making Modern Social Science: The Global Imagination in East Central and Southeastern Europe after Versailles

The events of 1914 initiated the redrawing of many boundaries, both geopolitical and intellectual. At the outbreak of the war the London-based anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski was at a professional meeting in Australia. Technically an ‘enemy alien’ (a Pole of Austro-Hungarian citizenship), he was barred from returning to Britain; stranded in Australia, under surveillance by authorities and with insecure finances, Malinowski began fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands that would result in his groundbreakingArgonauts of the Western Pacific(1922).1Argonauts’ influence rested on its compelling portrait of the anthropologist as ‘participant-observer’, the insider/outsider uniquely poised to decode and recode cultures and meanings.2Malinowski thus adeptly retooled his own ambiguous status into a paradigm of the ethnographer’s optimal subject-position – quipping that he himself was particularly suited to this role, as ‘the Slavonic nature is more plastic and more naturally savage than that of Western Europeans’.3

Meurtres sans préméditation

This essay expresses my work as a translingual novelist – immigrating from Vietnamese to French. It deals with the impossibility, as a fiction writer reborn in a new language, to recount reality, as the real world is reflected in at least two cultural zones. The use of a pseudonym is the first step to this split reality. A decision that entitles me to a new identity and one that also led to confusion when I encountered a visitor from my past mono-ethnic persona: Marcelino Truong, a French-Vietnamese painter and author of graphic novels. We had first met at the Institute of Political Sciences in Paris prior to a professional meeting twenty-five years later when both our names and careers had drastically changed. I relate to other translingual writers such as Romain Gary, a virtuoso of disguised identities who wrote novels under two different pseudonyms. The second part of the essay is an inspection of Tijana Miletic’s arguments in European literary Immigration into the French Language: Readings of Gary, Kristof, Kundera and Semprun that reflect my own experience: the themes of the double and incest pervade translingual writers’work, as they do mine. Cet essai exprime ma perspective de romancière translingue qui passe d’une langue à l’autre, à savoir, du vietnamien au français. En tant qu’écrivaine dont la renaissance à l’écriture s’effectue dans une nouvelle langue, je constate l’impossibilité de raconter la réalité du fait que le monde réel est reflété à travers au moins deux zones culturelles. L’emploi d’un pseudonyme dans mon cas constitue le premier pas vers cette réalité divisée. C’est une décision qui m’octroie le droit à une nouvelle identité et qui mène aussi à des confusions, par exemple, lorsque je recroise sur mon chemin un visiteur de mon passé monoethnique, Marcelino Truong, un peintre et auteur graphique franco-vietnamien. Vingt-cinq ans avant cette rencontre professionnelle, nous nous sommes croisés à Sciences-Po à Paris. Nos noms et carrières ont radicalement changé depuis. Je m’associe à des écrivains translingues tels que Roman Gary, un virtuose d’identités déguisées qui publie ses romans sous deux pseudonymes différents. Dans la deuxième partie de mon essai j’examine les arguments de Tijana Miletic dans son livre European literary Immigration into the French Language : readings of Gary, Kristof, Kundera and Semprun. Ce qu’elle y décrit reflète ma propre expérience : les thèmes du double et de l’inceste imprègnent l’œuvre de ces écrivains, comme ils imprègnent la mienne.

Access over ownership: meeting facilities in Lyngby-Taarbæk Knowledge City

Purpose This study aims to investigate the attitude towards shared space in an urban context with a particular focus on meeting facilities. The Lyngby-Taarbæk City of Knowledge is used as a case, as this organisation has a vision of sharing facilities to stimulate regional development. Design/methodology/approach The attitude towards shared space in the Lyngby-Taarbæk City of Knowledge is studied in a three-step qualitative research process. An initial survey investigated the City of Knowledge’s members’ attitude towards shared space in general, a workshop further explored motivations and practical needs and a second survey investigated the attitude towards shared meeting facilities. The Brinkø Typology of Shared Use of Space and Facilities is used as the theoretical framework for the study (Brinkø et al., 2015). Findings This study shows that the respondents are very positive towards the concept of shared space but more reluctant when it comes to sharing own facilities. A majority of the informants are often using externally owned facilities for meetings and events and prefer professional meeting facilities to schools, universities and sports facilities. This points to a need for developing relevant service concepts, if a shared space strategy with focus on meeting facilities were to be used to increase the use rate of existing buildings not already intended for this use. Originality/value This study adds to the so far limited amount of scientific knowledge on the topic of shared space, by investigating the attitude towards shared space among a specific group of people, in relation to the use of external meeting facilities.

Do EPs change their clinical behaviour in the hallway or when a companion is present? A cross-sectional survey

ObjectivesOur aim was to determine whether emergency physicians (EPs) felt their standard patient evaluation practice was modified by two non-private clinical encounters: hallway encounters and encounters during which a companion was present.MethodsWe administered an iteratively developed cross-sectional survey at an annual national professional meeting. We used logistic regression to compare relationships among non-private clinical encounters and predictors of interest.Results409 EPs completed the survey. EPs deviated from standard history-taking when practising in a hallway location (78%) and when patients had a companion (84%). EPs altered their standard physical exam when practising in a hallway location (90%) and when patients had a companion (77%). EPs with at least a decade of experience were less likely to alter history-taking in the hallway (OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.31 to 0.99). Clinicians who frequently evaluated patients in the hallway reported delays or diagnostic error-related to altered history-taking (OR 2.34, 95% CI 1.33 to 4.11). The genitourinary system was the most common organ system linked to a delay or diagnostic error. Modifications in history-taking were linked to delays or failure to diagnose suicidal ideation or self-harm (25%), intimate partner violence (40%), child abuse (12%), human trafficking (8%), substance abuse (47%) and elder abuse (17%).ConclusionsOur study suggests that alterations in EP usual practice occurs when the doctor–patient dyad is disrupted by evaluation in a hallway or presence of a companion. Furthermore, these disruptions are associated with delays in care and failure to diagnosis medical, social and psychiatric conditions.

UK physiotherapy and haemophilia: A future strategy built on past success

From its humble beginnings in 1990, the UK’s Haemophilia Chartered Physiotherapists Association (HCPA) has led the development of haemophilia physiotherapy in the UK and increasingly across Europe too. Over the past 10 years, the growth of the group has centred on an annual professional meeting that facilitated educational opportunities and professional networking, and has increasingly promoted research among members. The HCPA has now established a Clinical Studies Group, an open forum designed to identify and support research needs and to promote a collaborative approach to research that will answer some of the important questions that remain about haemophilia care.

"Walking the Walk”: Promoting Competencies for Interprofessional Learning through Team Meetings—A Case Study

Background: Interprofessional learning is a key aspect of improving team-based healthcare. Core competencies for interprofessional education (IPE) activities have recently been developed, but there is a lack of guidance as to practical application. Methods and Findings: Cancer Forum is a weekly multi-professional meeting used as the case study for this report. Power was identified as a critical issue and six questions were identified as the basis for a structured reflection on the conduct of Cancer Forum. Results were then synthesised using Habermas’ delineation of learning as instrumental, normative, communicative, dramaturgical, and emancipatory. Power was a key issue in identified obstacles to inter professional learning. Leadership emerged as a cross-cutting theme and was added as a seventh question. The emancipatory potential of interprofessional learning benefited from explicit consideration of the meeting agenda to promote competencies of sharing role knowledge, teamwork and communication. Modelling of required skills fulfils a dramaturgical and normative role. Conclusions: The structured reflection tool highlighted the relationship between power and IPE competencies. It was essential to walk the walk as well as talk. The process followed provides a practical guide for using team meetings to promote interprofessional learning competencies and thereby improving patient care.