A dispute over the naming of Russian institutes for scientific studies is causing a unique publication backlog in particle physics: thousands of physicists who were involved in experiments at the particle accelerator of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva have not seen the results of their work published in scientific journals for months, as CERN Research director Joachim Mnich told the German Press Agency. There are now around 200 studies, half of which have already been assessed by independent experts and theoretically released for publication.
The problem: specialist journals insist that authors are clearly identified. This usually happens about the mention of their institutes. Some CERN cooperation partners block this in the case of Russian institutes, as Mnich says. Among other things, the stone of the kick -off is that the management bodies of some of these institutions have opposed the Russian attack war against Ukraine.
"Publications are the hard currency of science, both for the careers of young people and for applications for funding," Mnich said. The pressure to come to a solution is increasing. The CERN studies are already published as preliminary work with the submission to specialist journals. But in some countries, doctoral theses could be completed only if the authors have published in specialized journals. This is not the case in Germany.
It is not about not naming authors who have contributed to a study, Mnich emphasized. It is only about the institutes. An alternative could be to identify those involved based on their orcid number. Each scientist has such a "Open Researcher and Contributor ID" in order to be able to clearly assign his contributions, for example, with the same name with others or in different spellings. According to Mnich, the list of authors in CERN experiments often includes up to 3000 names.
The CERN experiments are each accompanied by a collaboration committee in which all contributing institutes have a voice. So far, no agreement has been reached there. Although CERN has terminated the cooperation with Russia and Belarus, it will continue until 2024. "This is a very emotional issue, which makes it difficult to find an acceptable compromise," Mnich said.
