Publish or Perish; Impact factor and its impact on you

In this episode we chat with Dr. rer. Nat. Angeliki Stamtsis-Datsi the origins of the "publish or perish" culture, how it became so ingrained, and its impact on academic life today.
We compare impact factors and citation metrics, exploring how they shape career trajectories and research priorities.
Delving into ethical challenges, inflated co-authorship and explore new ways of measuring research influence, such as open-access platforms and collaborative projects.
Angeliki is a senior PostDoc in the field of immunotherapies and clinical trials, who shared her valuable thoughts and impressive experiences.
What should be our next episode about? Leave a comment below.

Transcript

Nóra Balzer (00:00.881)
Welcome everyone to the Young Immunologist Podcast, ImmunoChat, the official podcast of the Young Immunologist, the German Association of Immunology. Today we talk about publish or purrish, one of the main question of a PhD student. And I have a guest, her name is Angeliki and she's a PhD student at the, the uni, no.

Nóra Balzer (00:28.655)
and she's a postdoc at the University of Düsseldorf. Hi, Angeliki, thank you very much for joining the podcast. Would you please introduce yourself?

Angeliki Datsi (00:37.229)
Hi Nora, thanks for having me today. Also to speak about a very, very important topic in all of our scientific careers actually. So yeah, my name is Angelli Kietazi and I'm a Senior Postdoc by now at the University of Düsseldorf and I'm working in the Institute of Transplantation Diagnostics and Cell Therapeutics.

I'm already in my fifth year and I'm aiming for habilitation soon and professorship. So I'm on the last part of the young immunologist career path. Yes, and I think I can give you some insights and thoughts about my field of work as I'm working in clinical trials for cell therapeutics, which is also quite a disturbed topic when it comes to complications. And we will come to that later.

Nóra Balzer (01:30.993)
Yes, right. Yeah, so before we just jump into that, we can also just discuss the different type of publications because we know there is preview, review, research article and also in different fields, different rules. So how is it for you? Could you give us an introduction?

Angeliki Datsi (01:49.9)
Yes, so I mean we all know the big names, the big journals like nature, cell, immunity and different fields have also different kind of impact factors, a topic that is very, very controversial these days. Of course, the big names have very high impact factors and everyone is dreaming of having a nature paper or a cell one.

But there are also fields, especially in medical and clinical trials, where the impact factor doesn't really play a role, but it's more like about the side score. So how often do the clinicians read this paper? How often is it cited? There are niches of different topics that cover different aspects of publications and fields. So the impact factor is really not that important about this.

But yes, there is like the difference between the research article, which is basically focused on, yeah, I would say research that has been done experimentally or statistically in the lab or imperial research. So it is based on data that scientists actually establish in their field and it's unique and it's new. So everything you put in a research article is something you have done in your lab.

While if you write a review, example, it's more... You basically make a summary and a sneak peek of what is out there about the topic of your interest. So it's like more a big literature research guide, I would say. But I do believe that reviews are super important too.

Nóra Balzer (03:30.396)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (03:35.53)
Of course, new data is always the best going for a research article, but placing your name out there in a field with writing a review is as important, would say, showing that you know your topic best.

Nóra Balzer (03:49.021)
That's true. So I really liked when I just started my PhD, I came into a new field and then writing a review just really helps you to just read everything up, what has been done in this field. So I think reviews are also very important and in compared with research articles, those can be a quick win for, because of course, publishing a research article can just really take years.

Angeliki Datsi (04:12.222)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (04:18.138)
Absolutely. It's also, I think, a good practice for young students to do writing and literature research. I don't think that everyone knows exactly what to look for. mean, we have platforms these days like PubMed they get lost in, right? So I think it's a good guide to get into the writing part.

Nóra Balzer (04:19.747)
and yeah.

Nóra Balzer (04:34.895)
Right.

Nóra Balzer (04:38.875)
Yeah, and you have just mentioned the citation score and I think it would be great to define if it's related to an article citation score or is it a personal thing for a scientist? So could you talk about it a bit?

Angeliki Datsi (04:42.908)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (04:56.644)
Of course. mean sometimes I would say articles and papers contacting researchers and ask them to submit a work. And they always do marketing by saying, hey, we have a citation score of eight. And you wonder, what does that actually mean? What do they want to tell me with it? It means that even if the impact factor is not really high in the field that they're covering with their...

research articles and their marketing, would say they are very well cited. So they are recognized by the community they are covering with. So this is like the journal's citation score, which is one aspect that is important. So if you publish somewhere you want it to be a journal that is actually renowned and not just some journal that is lying on a desk, I would say.

But then there's this personal citation score as well, which we call an H index somehow. So it means like you have published some work and you are defined by how often do people actually rely on what you have published. So do they cite your work? Has it been successfully recognized in your community?

Nóra Balzer (05:57.97)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (06:16.665)
So this is the personal citation score. How often have your publications been cited? And I think this is even more important because this kind of defines your success in your career.

Nóra Balzer (06:27.897)
indeed and young immunologists who are just getting married and changing their names sometimes that can be really a hassle. So how was it for you?

Angeliki Datsi (06:38.05)
Yeah, absolutely. So I had to take a decision when I got married. It was like this hustle. Am I taking my husband's name? Yes or no? Am I keeping mine? And then we don't have a common family name. And I had published already by the time I got married and decided to keep my maiden name as my publication name because otherwise all of the papers that I have done before in PubMed would have been lost.

Like people would have been looking for my new name and would never find the papers I've published before. So that's why I kept my maiden name and I think I like it that I have developed my scientific career under my personal name. But I decided actually to take a double name which covers kind of both. But yes.

Nóra Balzer (07:08.945)
Yes.

Yes, of course.

Nóra Balzer (07:24.815)
Yeah, think, yeah, there are a couple of female scientists also in our field. I just know, for example, Christiane Nislein-Fallhart, who was also struggling with the, shall I take the name of my husband? And then with the double name is really a good solution for that. And of course there are IDs and so on and so forth. But I think the same that changing the name is a big question in science.

Angeliki Datsi (07:33.304)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (07:41.806)
Yeah.

Angeliki Datsi (07:50.347)
Absolutely, I mean I have colleagues that have changed their name and they have been referred to always like before marriage the name was like this and this. So this has always to be marked on a publication which I find is something that people overlook. So by the end of the name, the name on your publication and with your affiliation is the name you put in there. And if you took...

Nóra Balzer (08:08.251)
Right.

Angeliki Datsi (08:15.08)
your husband's name, it's going to be your husband's name and not yours anymore, would say. It's vice versa, it works the same. mean, even men take sometimes a woman's last name these days, right? So it's not like it has been years before. But yeah, I think it is definitely a topic that women are often struggling with and taking decisions.

Nóra Balzer (08:25.691)
Yes, true,

Angeliki Datsi (08:37.142)
But it also defines you if you are going to stay in science and do publications or not. I mean, if you decide to go into pharmacy or industry, it might not be that important anymore.

Nóra Balzer (08:48.869)
Yeah, then you can just forget about it. But I'm really curious because you are working in the topic of clinical trials and how does the publication process is there? What are the different steps? Can you really talk or publish anything or information that you know?

Angeliki Datsi (08:51.305)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (08:58.763)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (09:08.671)
Yes, so this is a really hard topic. Also something that I was made aware of when I started my work with my PI. So the first thing he said is, I know you are career driven and for making a career you need publications. Something is going to be very tough for you in this group. And I asked him, so why? And he was like, yeah, because to be fair,

we are not allowed to publish anything of our clinical data before the trial is over or comes to an interim analysis. So when you do clinical trials, you are allowed to publish interim data at a certain time point. So you have to fulfill like, for example, we are recruiting 140 patients with event.

Nóra Balzer (09:36.66)
well.

Angeliki Datsi (09:55.648)
80, for example, bit more than half of the patients, we were allowed to do an interim analysis and publish it. And I don't mean like publish it in paper. So we never wrote a manuscript about it, but go on conferences and publish it so we could talk about it at least. And before we were not allowed to talk about any of our data. So.

Nóra Balzer (10:11.921)
Yeah.

Nóra Balzer (10:18.769)
Wow.

Angeliki Datsi (10:19.643)
Yeah, and this is the problem because it might, they always say if you publish this kind of things and patients find it, you are biasing the recruitment. If I say, for example, my trial is successful, if you are treated with my pharmaceutical, you will be better off than if not. Then the patient will read it and will be already there, I have to go to that hospital and I have to do this trial because I will be better off if I take it. We are not allowed to do that. So.

Nóra Balzer (10:29.437)
Mmm.

Angeliki Datsi (10:48.487)
This is a big problem because if you run a trial, most of us who do that know that if you say the recruitment time is five years, it might be seven indeed. will never be just five years. It's tough to do something like that. So it's a long term if you do a proper controlled trial. That means also that

Nóra Balzer (11:01.883)
It's like a PhD and a postdoc together without publication, yeah.

Angeliki Datsi (11:14.82)
with Wissenschaftszeitgesetz, which is in Germany a big issue. If you don't publish to do your professorship, you might be out of work as a scientist before you have even published your paper. That means also you have to put double in the effort to do other research aside. So that is a problem or something I was facing.

Nóra Balzer (11:18.397)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (11:39.87)
When I started, realized, okay, I cannot take data out of our trial, but I need to start new research projects at a site or do collaborations to actually publish with other people together.

Nóra Balzer (11:55.561)
When you just mentioned collaboration, I have this ding ding ding authorship, shared authorship and so on and so forth. Because usually, of course, if it's your project, then at least in our field, it's also the authorship. You are the first author and so on and so forth. However, I have a friend, she's astrophysicist, and they put the authorship according to the last name. And there is no order based on the contribution.

Angeliki Datsi (12:00.303)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (12:16.989)
Mm-hmm.

Angeliki Datsi (12:20.72)
Mm-hmm.

Nóra Balzer (12:25.702)
So how is it with shared autorship positions and their meanings?

Angeliki Datsi (12:31.564)
Yeah, so I think in our field of natural sciences, it's very important where you are placed on a paper. It actually also communicates somehow how much did you actually contribute to the paper itself. So if you do collaborations, I think you have to discuss this even before you share data. So it's a negotiation you make with your collaboration partners to actually define

how the authorship will be ending up in the end. For example, if I start a collaboration and I know we have very important and good data to contribute, I will say, okay, I want the first authorship shared. It's always shared if you collaborate and the last authorship from my PI. And this actually works out nicely if you have defined your ground rules from the very beginning and everybody accepts it, then there is no discussion afterwards.

And it always works out quite nicely and if you are fair and you need to be a fair player otherwise you lose the collaboration. People know who has done more so then the discussion who goes first in a shared authorship is not a big discussion after all.

Nóra Balzer (13:47.151)
Okay, I have seen different stories.

Angeliki Datsi (13:49.516)
Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. So if you want to keep the collaboration and you want to be fair, then this is how it works. We, for example, have established very good collaborations, have published, and here we come again to the impact factor, published very well in high impact journals because we did the collaborations. I think the groups alone, so either we or them, couldn't have reached that impact without having each other.

Nóra Balzer (13:53.521)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (14:19.468)
Yeah, and we learned. yeah, authorship is always a thing. And I also feel that if you leave a lab, sometimes you are left out of the paper as well.

Nóra Balzer (14:19.771)
Yes, that's always like that.

Nóra Balzer (14:33.265)
Yes, people like forgetting about you.

Angeliki Datsi (14:36.108)
Yes, they're forgetting, they use your data and just don't put you on at all, which is horrible. Or you're just somewhere in the back, although you have initiated the projects and you have done all the groundbreaking work, right? Happens to lots of PhD students, I'm afraid.

Nóra Balzer (14:50.352)
Indeed.

Nóra Balzer (14:53.925)
And is there anything a PhD student who has left the lab can do something or?

Angeliki Datsi (15:01.529)
Stay in touch. Always remind the working group that you exist and that you have contributed. So use a timeframe, I don't know, every six months to require like after the progress of your work. And always keep saying like, can I do something to assist or is there anything I can do to help so that you stay in their minds and they do remember that you have started the project.

Nóra Balzer (15:03.537)
Yes.

Nóra Balzer (15:08.625)
Yes.

Nóra Balzer (15:31.035)
right.

Angeliki Datsi (15:31.98)
that you deserve to be part of the publication.

Nóra Balzer (15:35.421)
And also in the shared first and shared last autoships. It's a nice thing, but I think it's a development from the last 10 years maybe that we are doing now shared first and there are six scientists who share the first autorship. But at the end of the day, it will be always called like a Tazi at all or Balzer at all if you are the first first. And that's something still really counts.

Angeliki Datsi (15:44.759)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (15:56.819)
Exactly. Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (16:02.092)
Yeah, I think it's sad because exactly what you say when you're cited, it's only the one name that is upfront. So especially the last one who mostly is the PI who is driving the idea who actually acquired the funding for all of it. It's never really on the citation paper, right? So it's never your work somehow. But I also believe it's rudimentary.

Nóra Balzer (16:24.572)
Yeah.

Angeliki Datsi (16:32.567)
If we are lucky, it will be gone in a few years and it will not count anymore who is first or who is last and they will do it alphabetically. That would be the fair thing to do.

Nóra Balzer (16:42.264)
Right.

possibly. So I had a PI, I really liked his way of doing. So he just said that he can take the shared last, any position if his PhD students gets the first first. And that was really nice. I mean, it had nothing to do with science and most of the time the amount of contribution is really difficult to compare because everyone is doing whatever they can and we are

Angeliki Datsi (17:00.622)
well, yeah. Yeah.

Nóra Balzer (17:13.797)
mainly also sometimes from different fields. So is working with the mice or managing the lab or doing bioinformatics analysis. Those are contributions you cannot really compare.

Angeliki Datsi (17:26.846)
I agree. Especially if you work in a clinical environment like we are, for example. I mean, there is a big argument between the scientists and the clinicians because the scientists say, hey, I came up with the idea and I'm doing all of the work and the only thing the clinician is doing is giving me like a piece of tumor, for example, like the sample that I need. But without the sample, I wouldn't even be able to do all of the work I'm doing.

Nóra Balzer (17:48.252)
Yes.

Nóra Balzer (17:54.928)
Right?

Angeliki Datsi (17:55.657)
They do acquire the patients, they recruit them, they make them sign the agreement, they talk to them, and we need the clinicians to do groundbreaking science. So even if it's just giving us the sample, it's as important as everything we do in the lab. So for being successful in human research, I think there is a back-to-back work with the clinicians. And we should not forget that.

Nóra Balzer (18:20.378)
Right.

Exactly. And I think during COVID came the dilemma, publishing without peer review and community review and so on and so forth. So how do you think about it? I assume in clinical trials or in this field, it's not really an option, but in many scientists start doing that. many people from the community just take published science even without peer review.

Angeliki Datsi (18:30.344)
Mm-hmm.

Nóra Balzer (18:52.507)
as a fact.

Angeliki Datsi (18:53.957)
Yeah, so I think it's my opinion about this is controversial and difficult to grab, I would say, because on the one hand, I feel also from my own experience that I have had in the past, the peer review can take forever. So there is like they they ask for a reviewer and the reviewer says yes. And the day before he has to submit his review, he pulls out of it and

Nóra Balzer (19:13.243)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (19:23.763)
It takes forever to actually find a good reviewer who is doing it by heart and properly. So I also feel that it's getting harder than it used to be. many scientists are so overwhelmed with the work they already have that they don't find the time to do the peer reviewing. So I think we are struggling with that in the first place. But I do believe it's actually elevating the papers.

Nóra Balzer (19:44.295)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (19:53.308)
quality because you get so when you work on a project you are like in a tunnel you have your idea you have your data you see it hundred and fifty thousand times I mean how often did you read your PhD thesis and found mistakes still and if you open it now you will still find a mistake after editing it a hundred times and this is similar to our research the data we produce so we see it we have our idea how the controls should be

Nóra Balzer (20:10.909)
Yes!

Angeliki Datsi (20:20.977)
And for us, it's clear we know the storyline and everything. But if we have other people look from the outside on top of it, they might actually give us a twist that we didn't even see, or they might improve our data, or they might make us include some of our preliminary data, which we thought are not important, and they think they would actually help make your story more understandable. So I am a fan of the peer reviewing from this side.

Nóra Balzer (20:46.299)
Right.

Angeliki Datsi (20:49.681)
because you get an input and it might make your paper even better. But I believe the system is kind of broken lately and there are some predatory journals that actually use the peer review system to actually distribute your work and give heads up to others who are working on similar stuff, which is also not very nice.

But then on the other hand, think publishing like in a bio-archives, it helps put your work out there for people to see and to read in order to save time because somebody might have like a use of your data already and then it's out there. So you share it. And it also kind of helps to break down this very expensive publication fees.

Nóra Balzer (21:21.725)
Mm-hmm.

Nóra Balzer (21:39.943)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (21:45.262)
which are a problem for many scientists because they cannot acquire as much money from the funding pots that they actually need to spend for a publication. So we always have to find money lying somewhere around to publish, which is not there. Everybody knows that. And also it might help you if you know somebody sitting in your neck. So we all know how it is to be scooped.

if other people publish before you because you are hung up on a peer review system, then I believe it's a good way to go to publish it in a preprint. And it's always noted, it's a not peer reviewed preprint. So people know to take your data with caution. But yeah, COVID actually has ruined some of the system because then people also put out stories that were not verified.

Nóra Balzer (22:16.679)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (22:43.174)
And I think lots of papers had to be retracted after COVID. So we really have to be cautious with the preprints, but I don't think it's the worst thing.

Nóra Balzer (22:49.085)
Thanks

Nóra Balzer (22:55.953)
Yes, I agree. think if it's for the scientific community, then it's good. But I think I have some friends who are not scientists and they have no idea what is a peer review or an open access or what is a community reviewed article. And then it gets risky. Nevertheless, I think educating the whole community, scientists and non-scientists, is the way to go. And I also agree that

Angeliki Datsi (23:10.776)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (23:16.12)
Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Nóra Balzer (23:25.565)
putting something out even if it's not finished yet. It's just great. It's agile.

Angeliki Datsi (23:29.984)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, imagine going to the conferences where you only hear talks that have already been published half a year, a year ago, that you already read by yourself. You think, boring is that? You want to go there and hear about unpublished data, stuff that you couldn't reach yourself from PubMed or something. And I think similar is the preprint system.

Nóra Balzer (23:42.14)
Yes.

Nóra Balzer (23:53.221)
Indeed.

Nóra Balzer (23:57.767)
Yes. And then we come to another interesting or challenging point of science, namely open access publication fee that you have already mentioned. I was always struggling with that, that I made my science from taxpayers' money and then I publish it for a publication fee. And if this taxpayer wants to read it, then he still needs to pay to download it.

Angeliki Datsi (24:25.963)
I think open access is a great thing and I believe that everyone should implement it. So every journal should implement an open access system. I think it's too expensive so they should try to find a way to make it cheaper because lots of, as I said before, lots of research groups do not have the money

Nóra Balzer (24:27.793)
So how do you see that?

Nóra Balzer (24:42.994)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (24:54.955)
to publish open access. mean, we do talk about application, sorry, we do talk about publication fees that raise like 2000 euros or even more for open access, while non-open access might be less than 2000. So imagine having a funding from the DFG, which is mostly not more than 200,000 for a PhD student and a technician, and then you have travel costs and consumables.

Nóra Balzer (25:07.879)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (25:24.818)
Mostly the publication money you get is like 5,000 euros. So what? One and a half publications? This doesn't work. Either it's two or none or one. Right? So this is the tricky part. If it's too expensive, most of the funding parties do not fund it.

Nóra Balzer (25:29.991)
Mm-hmm.

Nóra Balzer (25:43.705)
Right.

Angeliki Datsi (25:45.14)
But I have seen that they encourage the funding of open access. So they do say, please note if you're planning to do open access. Or for example, the Elsa Kroener Foundation, they actually state, we want you to publish only in open access. So this is something they actually write in their agreement when you sign.

Nóra Balzer (26:06.481)
Yeah, great. I think the same. That's the way to go. So you have mentioned that you have projects which are clinical trials that can take long until publication and therefore you also have different, let's call side projects. So what is your experience regarding publication timelines? So how can we compare that?

Angeliki Datsi (26:13.908)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (26:29.873)
well...

Nóra Balzer (26:31.451)
How long does a publication take?

Angeliki Datsi (26:33.872)
Yeah, I think from the initial submission until your actual publication, one has to count one year. So if you're not the lucky person who knows the editor of some journal somewhere where your topic fits, then you have to count one year. And especially if you get a big revision, for example, in between, because there is like this ranging. If you get the reviewer comments, you get like smaller revisions or major revisions.

And if it's a research article, major remissions always mean new experiments. So new experiments means a timeline of six months. And then you have to write them up again, and then they have to review them again. So I guess one year is something you should definitely count in when you publish a paper. And if your contract is three years, for example, a year means a lot. So you have to keep all that in mind always.

Nóra Balzer (27:12.807)
Yes.

Nóra Balzer (27:23.185)
Yeah, so that's.

Nóra Balzer (27:33.051)
Yeah, so that's this one year once your science is done, you have like a rough manuscript and you submit the first version, right? Okay. Yeah. Cause science can take, if you also calculate the science part, yeah.

Angeliki Datsi (27:41.093)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (27:45.447)
forever.

But this is also the tricky part, right? It always depends on which PI you're working with. So the well-established PIs that are, I would say, already a bit older and they have made a name for themselves, they can't be bothered with smaller publications because they don't need it anymore. So they have collected all the publications they need for their names and now they're going for...

Nóra Balzer (27:55.164)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (28:15.953)
good science, as they call it, which means high impact. And a high impact project, for example, for a nature paper doesn't only need lots of funding, it also needs lots of manpower. So sometimes they burn down three PhD students for the same project and take nine to 10 years before they actually publish it. So something I can tell from my PhD, I still haven't published my PhD work because

Nóra Balzer (28:37.861)
Right.

Angeliki Datsi (28:43.95)
it's not groundbreaking enough yet. And it's like five years ago already. And people ask me, like, what about your PhD? Why isn't it published? And I'm like, yeah, well, ask my PI. Because they want a high impact. And a high impact is not easily reached.

Nóra Balzer (29:02.331)
Yeah, I can say the same from my PhD.

Angeliki Datsi (29:05.53)
Yeah, and I think this is a big problem people are facing because they apply for jobs and people keep asking, where is your publication from your PhD? And I'm like, yeah, it's not in my hands in the end.

Nóra Balzer (29:16.604)
Yes.

What did you do during your PhD? There is no paper.

Angeliki Datsi (29:22.71)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So sometimes it's not your decision. And I think this is also a thing that needs to be changed in science. So either it's not mandatory to do a publication and PhD. Like in the UK, you have like the three year program and whatever happens in this three year, you write it together and you defend it. So publication or not. Why here in Germany, some of your PIs keep you in the loop.

Nóra Balzer (29:46.78)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (29:50.212)
until you publish. So you might have a PhD like six years, seven years, because you haven't published, or you go and have no publication at all. So a system that needs improvement yet.

Nóra Balzer (30:00.378)
Exactly.

Nóra Balzer (30:04.123)
Or you see in 10 years your PhD project published with different names. Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (30:07.363)
You

Exactly, then you come to this point again. It's so far away that you are forgotten. Yeah, definitely a problem.

Nóra Balzer (30:15.335)
Exactly. So how did you see? I I made my own experience regarding importance of publication in career development. I mean, if you don't have a first author publications, many stipends, many grant applications are not available for you. How was it for you?

Angeliki Datsi (30:37.315)
It's the same actually, so I was telling you that I haven't published during my PhD. So when I applied for the Intramural, so the local funding of the university, the first round I actually didn't get the funding because, and it was really just because they told me in the evaluation later, I was lacking one first author publication.

So then the year after I collected this one publication and I got the funding after all, but this was the first limitation I saw. So then I went to my PI and said, listen, I need to publish more. Please give me some space to do more publications aside of the clinical trial. And so he did. So we came up with collaborations and started doing different kinds of things. But yes, this is an issue. So you do not get funding. And not only that, if you want to do a habilitation and a professorship.

you have to collect the publications. So universities differ in their ground rules, but I think on the baseline you have to have minimum six first author publications. You need to get them in a certain amount of time. So publication is still important. I think more important for very not the right reasons, I think you should publish

because you want to distribute what you have done. You want to show the people your data and you want to build a name for yourself rather than the funding or the career path. So I think people get lost in this track of why are we publishing? We end up doing like very low impact fast food papers just because we need to collect the numbers.

I'm not a fan of that and I refuse to do it, but that takes me even longer. But most people actually do like 0.5 impact factors. They take everything they get with a paper with one figure actually just doing a case report claiming some very general stuff without even significance.

Angeliki Datsi (32:50.24)
just because they need the papers and in the end nobody is actually counting what is written in your paper, it's just the number. Did you reach the 15 publications? Yes or not?

Nóra Balzer (32:59.717)
Wow, that's the saddest thing I just heard today. This, because once you just fell, if you want to make an academic career, you can fall into this quantity over quality point.

Angeliki Datsi (33:10.473)
Yes, absolutely. I mean, they do say like you collect a cumulative impact factor. So it means if you publish a paper over a double digit, so 10 and above, it counts for more than a lower one, but you still need to have the seven or eight publications depending on the university. So it's like a bit of, yeah, we do kind of recognize that you have worked long years for getting a double digit.

Nóra Balzer (33:25.042)
Mm-hmm.

Angeliki Datsi (33:40.201)
But nevertheless, we need more. So it's a negotiation that it's very difficult to fulfill. So you kind of make compromises for yourself. You lose your integrity. This is something I feel like, just because the rules make you do it. And then you see a paper out there, which you think like, yeah, well, I published it. Congratulations. But I'm not really happy with it. So yeah.

Nóra Balzer (33:58.705)
Right.

Angeliki Datsi (34:09.989)
It's a trade-off.

Nóra Balzer (34:10.043)
Yes. And if we just go back a little bit to quality, because I think the whole way of publication and how to measure the quality of a publication also puts a point what makes a good scientist. And we were talking about impact factor. And if I read the articles in Cell Nature Science, they are usually the papers with a good topic. So it's...

Angeliki Datsi (34:25.917)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (34:37.726)
Hmm.

Nóra Balzer (34:38.257)
choice of topic that is relevant, the way of communication is good and it's something you look at the paper and you just understand even if you are not deeply involved. that puts me one side also the question science communication is so important that many scientists just don't really learn at the early career phase.

Angeliki Datsi (34:58.064)
Yes.

Nóra Balzer (35:05.469)
So how is it for in your field in the clinical trials with the impact factors? Do they also count or how do you negotiate between quality and quantity?

Angeliki Datsi (35:17.34)
Yes, that's a wonderful question actually, because I can ask you one question back. Do you really understand the papers that you are reading in Nature or Science always, or do you need a week to go through them? So the way the papers have developed these days is new techniques, complicated techniques, bioinformatics. So you cannot...

Nóra Balzer (35:31.919)
not always and yeah.

Angeliki Datsi (35:43.974)
published in Nature or Cell anymore, if you don't have done any sort of single cell sorting, single cell sequencing, bioinformatical evaluation, spatial transcriptomics, peptidomics whatsoever, it must be fancy. And then the figures look overloaded and fancy too. And then if you try to actually present one of these papers in a journal club,

Nóra Balzer (35:58.205)
Yeah, you need something fancy. Yeah.

Angeliki Datsi (36:10.62)
The 45-minute slot will never cover it. You need three hours. So you know where I'm heading to? So it has become so expensive and complicated to get these kind of papers done that they don't really rely to what is going on in the lab on a daily business or in a clinical trial. So if you do a clinical trial, the techniques you're using are not so fancy after all. You treat the patient.

Nóra Balzer (36:18.364)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (36:38.382)
you see how the patient has been responding to your treatment. You assess some of the parameters, especially in my field, it's immunology now, so I'm doing the immunomonitoring. And of course, whatever counts most is did we treat the patients and if it's about cancer overall survival or not. So there are differences in how you publish. So there is like what I said, the interim analysis, the publication.

that you have to take with caution, but it might give you an insight how the trial is running. If a trial, for example, is going really, really bad and the patients have extreme side effects, then you stop the trial after an interim analysis. So this might happen too. Then you're done. This was your trial. It was not successful. And you start from a scratch. But if you manage to complete the trial and to get

an impact for the patient, your impact factor is sky high. So you get a Lancet or a New England Journal of Medicine, like the really high journals. So this is what my PI said, where do you care about papers? If you publish, you go up sky high. And I said, well, it's not only one paper, it's the number two. during a period of time, you need to show performance. But yeah, if you manage to get a successful trial, you can publish it quite well.

Nóra Balzer (37:45.639)
Yeah.

Nóra Balzer (37:56.263)
Bye.

Angeliki Datsi (38:05.111)
So, and this is also where we rely to, right? We look into our journals, we look into our papers, but what mostly happens with clinical trials is you find them in something like the conferences like ESMO or ASCO. These are the conferences where the clinicians or the scientists present the interim analysis. So you get abstract booklets or a summary of the data that has been generated by them.

It doesn't really have an impact factor at that point.

Nóra Balzer (38:38.937)
Yeah, but you still share the knowledge with the scientific community, which is so important that scientists just know, for example, also with negative data that, okay, I don't go at that direction.

Angeliki Datsi (38:41.609)
Exactly.

Angeliki Datsi (38:50.657)
There we go, coming back to the negative data. In a clinical trial, you have to publish the clinical data, which means if it wasn't successful, you have to let the community know. So people do not try the same treatment with other people. While in research, most negative data is like scooped under the...

Nóra Balzer (38:55.025)
Yes.

Nóra Balzer (39:03.868)
Yes.

Nóra Balzer (39:12.049)
forget about it, yeah.

Angeliki Datsi (39:12.979)
Yeah, yeah, so people get funding, as you said, from the taxpayers, because most funding pots are from the taxpayers. And they do it again and again and again, the same research that has failed already, because people are afraid of publishing negative data and they don't see the impact of it. But there is an impact. Don't apply for the same funding again. So I'm a fan of publishing negative data.

Nóra Balzer (39:21.137)
Mm-hmm.

Nóra Balzer (39:37.308)
Yes!

Nóra Balzer (39:42.361)
Me too. Nevertheless, it's still in the scientific community. It's pretty much underrated because we just discussed what do you need for a high impact factor publication? Fancy topic, fancy techniques and a good network. Maybe know the editor and these are, yeah, those are the skills that makes a good scientist. I hope not. But yeah.

Angeliki Datsi (39:49.857)
Yeah.

Angeliki Datsi (39:55.222)
yet.

Angeliki Datsi (40:00.31)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (40:07.37)
Well, I think it's a combination of all, I guess. So this is something that is underestimated in the field of science, that we are multitaskers. So we have to be good in the lab because we have to make our experiments work somehow. But then we have to be illustrators too because we have to make them look nice once we evaluated the data. And if you don't have access to a bioinformatician, just learn some bioinformatics on top of it.

Then also get presentation skills because you have to like actually distribute your data. And of course you need to be a novelist writing a nice paper that people like to read and not just state the facts. You have to have a talent of writing too. So we have to have so many talents that we are not even aware of it when we start our journey. But all of that comes up together in the end.

Nóra Balzer (40:35.793)
Mm-hmm.

Angeliki Datsi (41:02.899)
minimized to a publication you have put out there. So I'm not sure this is enough.

Nóra Balzer (41:06.981)
Right?

Nóra Balzer (41:12.126)
So how is it in your field? Because of course there are many conferences and so on and so forth and also with papers we mainly talk to other scientists who are in our field. So we are just in our small scientific bubble. Do you use alternative ways to publish your science also with the brighter community who are for example not scientists but taxpayers?

Angeliki Datsi (41:23.733)
Yeah.

Angeliki Datsi (41:35.988)
Well, I have to say, unfortunately not at the moment, but I do believe we have to. So this was also one of the ideas of the young immunologists when we started this podcast. It should become available to other people as well, and they should understand what we are talking about. So we try to avoid the very high scientific language so that people can actually listen into and understand what we are saying and what is our way to go.

I remember when I was in my time in Berlin, there were these science slams. Scientists went out there and made fun of the projects, made fun of themselves more or less, but also pitched their science. They pitched their science for a broad audience and made it understandable for people that do not understand the terms. I think we should do more of these kind of things because...

Nóra Balzer (42:11.186)
Mm-hmm.

Angeliki Datsi (42:33.811)
When COVID started, people started coming up to me, my family even, they came and were like, can you give me a small presentation about how Corona works and what is happening and what your immune system is doing? So I came like, well, okay, yeah, I can give you a very, complicated talk. But then I had to wrap my head around making it accessible and easy for them. And then they started distributing it at schools and for their friends. And I think there was a cool way to do so. I believe

Nóra Balzer (42:43.569)
Yeah.

Angeliki Datsi (43:04.367)
Our team was thinking about doing this kind of things more for schools so that younger kids can actually get access to cool science in early age already.

Nóra Balzer (43:15.697)
Yes, that's so important that they also get engaged into science and understand if an information is a it's validated or if it's just false. And I think that's all. Yeah, please.

Angeliki Datsi (43:25.733)
Yeah. Yes.

Absolutely. I'm sorry, think the pandemic actually taught us a lot. was lesson learned. Whatever news came out there were taken as a fact. and even later, just later when the whole vaccines got a bit criticized, they started looking into the details of it.

Nóra Balzer (43:44.242)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (43:54.882)
So I think people learn that they cannot trust every bit of information out there and that they have to go on the journey by themselves a bit. So I think we can help by making things more accessible for the broader audience. And we should, especially our young immunologists, not only, but our young community or young scientists, because we have the tools. I think the generation before us

Nóra Balzer (44:16.657)
Yes. Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (44:24.036)
They didn't know what a podcast is or all of this social media that just like became the hype now. And I think we can use this. Yeah.

Nóra Balzer (44:34.215)
Yeah, I think the same that also the pandemic and this newer generation of scientists just get a new skill how to become a good scientist because for me, the only skill I learned how to give a scientific talk. That was the name of the workshop, how to give a scientific talk with introduction, metals, and I think now we are all learning how to engage for science, how to make science also

not funny, but something that people can attractive and understandable and it can be still high quality science which is easily communicated and entertaining. Why not?

Angeliki Datsi (45:04.161)
Attractive. Yeah. Yeah.

Angeliki Datsi (45:14.316)
Yes, yes. So I came up with a science lab because we were talking about negative data. There was this one PhD student, I think in his last year, he actually printed all of his negative data on toilet paper and distributed it on the toilets of the audience, like the bathrooms. And he was like, if you want to see my data, it's on toilet paper, because this is all it's worth. And we were all laughing like crazy because

Nóra Balzer (45:21.725)
Mm-hmm.

Nóra Balzer (45:34.383)
Amazing.

Angeliki Datsi (45:42.538)
In fact, this is how we feel, even if it's not true, right? But he made it as a joke. Yeah, but it actually raised awareness of the problem here, right? Like he claimed it to be toilet paper, not more worth than toilet paper. And that actually indicated the actual opposite, that we were thinking, no, you should actually defend your work more. But yeah, so this was one of the examples.

Nóra Balzer (45:47.109)
Yes, it shouldn't be true.

Nóra Balzer (45:52.849)
Yes.

Nóra Balzer (46:11.279)
Yes, maybe a bit more personal questions for the end. So are you personally worried to perish? Will this constant pressure to publish remain through the entire career or is it something for the beginners?

Angeliki Datsi (46:16.098)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (46:27.788)
Well, this is a difficult question. I think we are all worried about that, but it's because of the position you will hold. Because eventually, if you have done everything right at the beginning, where you were afraid of perishing, you get like a permanent position somewhere, or you have a professorship, which you also have permanently, right? The point is, though, finding your way.

Nóra Balzer (46:52.305)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (46:56.65)
I mean, you chose to become a scientist because you are interested in things and you want to distribute them, right? So you need to publish at some point. And even if you have a permanent position, what is the sense of what you're doing if you don't publish it? And how do you continue your work? I mean, even as a professor, you don't get PhD students or staff to do the work you're interested in if you don't acquire funding. You do not acquire funding if you don't publish. So of course, you keep

being worried about this kind of things. I mean, you could do a one man show or a one woman show and just do everything by yourself and then you don't need funding. You have like the institutional money and this is all you need, right? But this is not how it should go. having students is also a way of giving something back, teaching them, educating them and distributing what your focus has been. So I don't think

that I'm afraid of perishing in that way, but I do need to keep publishing.

Nóra Balzer (48:02.393)
Right and I think we have also just learned in this episode that publishing is way more than cell nature science. There are so many ways you can share your science.

Angeliki Datsi (48:09.674)
Yes.

Angeliki Datsi (48:13.385)
Yes. I mean, also if you see that how many universities actually have dissolved the contracts with this high impact papers because they're too expensive, it's also a shame, right, that this we need to change our way of thinking, our way of looking into this journals and into this papers. So I think this is a lesson learned. Publish if you have something good. Look at the side factor.

because I think this is actually more important than the impact factor. Which journals are important in your community? Because nature is a broad thing, yes, but what is important for your community and what is cited well? So do your research to be cited as well. So I think...

Nóra Balzer (49:01.701)
Angeliki, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts all about publish or purge and from the field of clinical trials. I wish you all the best for your future career and stay in contact.

Angeliki Datsi (49:16.871)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Norah. It was a really nice chat and I hope we help people out there. Thanks.