The WIPO in Zurich, Switzerland opened its doors at 18:00 to the International Press Corps. To commence matters, the Swiss publication “die Weltwoche” directed a question to Israel and Canada seeking to gain more clarity into the funding mechanisms of the task force proposed by the aforementioned countries. The response on the part of the delegates was unspecific and noncommittal and later suggested that the funding would come from the WIPO.
American news giant CNN then posed a question as to who would have the authority to decide what a scientific paper is and, more importantly, what a scientific paper is not. CNN then also asked if the topic of censorship would be an obstacle if one certain party had the power of determination. The delegates of Sweden and Serbia answered the question by clarifying that the consensus is that the definition of a scientific paper was not and will not be explicitly determined. The suggestion that peer review would be a solution was also put forward.
The People’s Daily asked if every nation would be represented on the task force and who would determine what an “ethical and scientific paper” is. The answer from Serbia, Canada and Israel were, that the task force would represent every nation adequately. In response to the discussion that followed the above question, Morgunblaðið asked the delegates if a consensus could be reached. The delegate of Serbia stated that after the clarification on the matter of the task force by the delegate of Israel, a consensus would be likely.
Finally, die Weltwoche posed another question and asked how the committee’s decisions would affect big publishers and how the publishers’ losses would be compensated. The delegate of Serbia was of the opinion that publishing houses would not play a major role in the future. The delegate of Australia reminded the committee of the importance of providing incentives to publishing houses to change their financing mechanisms. The delegate of Sweden brought up the topic of metastudies and suggested that the trend of combining several single studies to form metastudies is one that is rapidly gaining traction and could be used by publishing houses in the future to give themselves a competitive edge.
Photo: Luis Quintero, Pexels
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