Commentary: A New Year -- And A Renewal Of Dedication To Our Readers

With this issue, The Scientist steps forward into its fourth year of publication as the trade newspaper for the science professional. In celebrating this milestone, I can say with confidence that The Scientist has indeed arrived and is here to stay. Following its startup in October 1986, our young paper - like most fledgling publishing ventures - suffered its share of uncertainties. The solid gains it has posted in subscriptions and advertising since then - particularly during the past six months - have thus been especially gratifying. Its progress attests, I believe, to the qualities that distinguish it from the other fine publications available to the science community. Chief among these qualities is The Scientist's dedication to a broad cross section of professionals, including bench scientists, teachers, managers, and policymakers. The Scientist is not dedicated to tracking a specific discipline or subdiscipline; nor is it a vehicle for publishing original research. And it certainly isn't just another popular science magazine aiming to make research intelligible to the layperson. Rather, The Scientist addresses - as no other publication does - the day-to-day career concerns of those who have chosen to dedicate their professional lives to scientific research. Its News section presents stories treating those developments that are bound to have the greatest impact on the careers of our readers, those developments concerned with the economic, political, ethical, and social aspects of science. In its Research section, The Scientist alerts readers to breakthrough papers by tracking key performance trends and by analyzing the scientific achievements - in terms of citation data - of leading researchers. Its Profession section keeps readers up to date on the rapidly changing conditions affecting the science job market in universities, government, and industry. And its Opinion section presents timely debates on the critical issues now facing all scientists. The Scientist is also gaining a wide and loyal readership because it provides the working professional with a welcome sense of community. It views the research world from an insider's perspective, a perspective based on the understanding that science is not always an objective and dispassionate pursuit of truth for its own sake, but is often shaped by personalities, politics, and competition. The Scientist is sensitive to the intense pressures that readers face in their careers - securing tenure and grant support, balancing teaching and research, managing staff and budgets, guiding junior researchers, and making ethical decisions. We intend to build on The Scientist's strengths and introduce new features. In 1990, for example, we'll be expanding the size of our News section, boosting our coverage of science activity in Canada, Europe, the Orient, and the developing nations. Also in the News section, we'll be paying closer attention to the goings-on in industry, particularly the biotech sector, with profiles of the companies that are making headway and the scientist-entrepreneurs who are behind them. At the same time, we'll enrich our Profession section with more in-depth reporting on the economic facts of scientific life - salary trends, hiring patterns in various disciplines, and other statistical data on the current job market in academia and industry. And, in our Research section, we'll launch a regularly appearing series commenting on the most-cited of all contemporary scientific authors, based on records of their published work from the 1970s and 1980s. In celebrating the start of The Scientist's fourth year, I thank our subscribers for supporting our vision of a trade newspaper for science. And I thank the individuals on our staff whose professionalism makes this vision a reality.

Commentary: A New Year -- And A Renewal Of Dedication To Our Readers

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