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Meet the Advances in Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry Team
- Raúl Fonseca, Handling Editor
- Olivier Pourret, EDIA/Ethics Team
- Ananya Mallik, Production Editor for Reviews and Special Editions
- Marthe Klöcking, Copyeditor
- Marc-Alban Millet, Co-Creator and Coordinating Editor
Highlighted Community Interview: Raúl Fonseca
Raúl Fonseca (Raúl Octávio Coquenão da Fonseca; he/him) earned his BSc. in Geology at the University of Lisbon in 2002 before pursuing further studies. He completed his Ph.D. at The Australian National University in 2007. From 2007 to 2017, he served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Bonn. Following this, Raúl became a Heisenberg Fellow at the University of Cologne from 2018 to 2019. Since 2019, he has held the position of Full Professor of Experimental Petrology and Geochemistry at Ruhr-University Bochum. Throughout his career, Raúl Fonseca's research and teaching has focused on a range of topics concerning high-temperature geochemistry, from the redox-dependent behaviour of trace elements during mantle melting, to the behaviour of stable isotopes in high-temperature experimental magmatic systems.
What was your main motivation to join the initiative?
I have always been a bit frustrated in the way that we publish our work. Typically, we receive public funding to carry out research and then we transfer our work to private publishers where we have to pay to access our work. The publishers then make profit margins that are comparable to the oil industry. I find this morally unacceptable. Some of my later career colleagues were hesitant to break the status quo. So, when I started engaging with early-mid career colleagues who were working to break this cycle, I jumped on board. I think we should take the initiative.
If you could choose one benefit/the major benefit of diamond open access (DOA) journals, what would it be?
Both accessibility and inclusivity. DOA means any scientist from any background can access the work. In some countries, funding agencies make it mandatory to pay for publications to be open access. This costs money, meaning that not everyone will have the means to do it. This creates a tiered system, which means that some people are excluded, creating "haves and have nots".
If you could highlight the main issue arising from current publishing schemes (non-DOA), what would it be?
It is becoming more and more an issue for me. It is obscene when publishers offer the possibility to pay several thousands of dollars to publish in high impact journals. Funding is short, so we use it mainly for lab work and to do research. At the moment, the publishing cost in our institute is nearly a quarter of our budget. But we are forced to pay and publish because publishing in these journals gives us the visibility that we require. Ten years ago publishing was much cheaper. I feel that this speaks to a larger issue about the credibility of science and how the general public perceive science. There has been an increasing trend of mistrust of science from the general public. It is therefore extremely important to ensure that science is open to all in order to build and maintain trust. Science must be made freely available to everyone, whoever and wherever you are.
Have you previously published in any other DOA journal? If the answer is no, can you specify why not?
Yes. When the scientific output is suitable (i.e., the content has to fit the scope of the journal and the publishing format), I publish in Geochemical Perspectives Letters. For my field this is the only truly DOA access journal. However, they do ask for a donation, if possible, to help with publishing costs. In this situation, when it is for a community-run journal, I don't mind making a contribution to publish. Actually, I am currently an editor for Geochemical Perspectives Letters. However, these articles are short and the scope of the story you want to tell has to be broad enough to be suitable for this journal.
Why do you think that other researchers, early-, mid- and late-career researchers, should contribute to Advances in Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry and submit their scientific work to the journal?
As scientists, most of us are public servants and we use tax money. We have to publish our results (accountability). I find it obscene, the status quo that we currently have, that we give away our work, that otherwise should be accessible by the public, to private profit. These should be freely accessible.
The way we publish is almost like a game. For an Early Career Researcher (ECR) publishing their first papers, the option of publishing a new DOA journal might be riskier than choosing an established journal. What do you think could be the role of more senior colleagues versus the role of the more ECR starting out?
I have heard that students and postdocs are hesitant to publish in these journals, because they know they need to target high profile journals to get the next job. I agree that the main effort should come first from more established researchers. That will also help establish the credibility of the journal. Things will naturally succeed.
Why have non-profit organisations (e.g., societies) not done this already?
Non-profit organizations, such as scholarly societies, have faced several challenges in adopting the DOA model. One major factor is the reliance on traditional revenue streams, such as journal subscriptions and publishing partnerships with commercial publishers, which have long supported their activities. Shifting to a DOA model requires overcoming the financial and logistical hurdles of moving away from these established income sources. Additionally, the transition to Open Access publishing has often been dominated by the Article Processing Charge (APC) model, which many societies have adopted to cover costs. Implementing a no-APC model, like DOA, may also demand new funding models or support from institutions and governments, which has not always been readily available. Moreover, there has been a historical inertia, where societies have been slow to reimagine their publishing models due to the complexity of navigating open-access policies, funding structures, and the changing needs of their members. As awareness grows around more equitable and sustainable open-access publishing models, there may be increasing momentum for non-profit organizations to embrace DOA.
Favourite element?
While I don't have a specific favourite element in the periodic table, I do have a soft spot for redox-sensitive trace elements. If I were forced to choose, I would pick sulfur. Despite its low abundances in Earth's mantle, sulfur exhibits a diverse range of geochemical behaviours depending on its speciation. When present as sulfide melt, for instance, sulfur exerts significant control over the behaviour of chalcophile elements such as Cu, Ag, and especially the noble metals. Additionally, sulfur is one of the most effective metasomatic agents in Earth's mantle. In essence, sulfide punches above its weight, exerting significant influence despite its low abundance.
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