Comment from Charles Sackett
Charles SackettOpposeAcademic
Summary: A professor of experimental atomic physics opposes the proposed revisions, arguing that they would restrict professional expenses, hinder the communication of scientific results, and place excessive scrutiny on scientists. The commenter emphasizes that funding for conference attendance and open-access publication fees is essential for scientific collaboration and research productivity.
[200.432, 200.454, 200.461, 200.206, 200.450]
To Whom it May Concern:
I am a professor of experimental atomic physics.
I am writing in my personal capacity to oppose the proposed revisions to sections 200.432, 200.454, 200.461, 200.206, and 200.450 that would restrict typical professional expenses, curtail the communication of scientific results, and place excessive scrutiny on the activities of scientists.
Membership in professional societies has played a huge role in my career, from promoting collaborations with colleagues to improving my understanding to the physics enterprise as a whole. That said, I have always paid for my society memberships out of pocket and I am comfortable to continue doing so. Other research may not be in a position to do so, however.
Attendance at scientific conferences is critical for a successful research program. All of my research has been impacted by things I have learned at conferences, and many of my most successful projects have been founded on an idea I got either from a talk I attended or a conversation I had at a conference. Grant money spend sending me or a student to a conference is not wasted, it is genuinely one of the most effective uses of funding. Any barriers to attending or selecting which conferences to attend will reduce scientific collaboration and thence overall research productivity.
Scientific publication is truly the heart of the research enterprise. I rely on ready access to the scientific literature to develop and implement my ideas, and the reason I carry out research is to contribute to that literature. Again, any artificial barriers imposed on this process will be highly detrimental to science in the United States.
A particular problem here is that funding agencies have been encouraging or demanding researchers to publish in open access journals, so that the public can freely access the research that their tax dollars support. Open access journals are supported by publication charges to authors, so if such charges were disallowed, open access would be impossible.