Editor’s note: Today’s guest post is by Meagan Phelan, Communications Director for the Science family of journals, based on her opening keynote for SSP’s New Directions Seminar.

We’re navigating an era when open access to research is expanding rapidly. Amid the push for openness, one question keeps nagging at me: If more research is openly available than ever before, and open is framed as a way to build trust, why isn’t public trust in science at an all-time high?

I’ve come to believe it’s because free isn’t enough.

Making research freely available doesn’t automatically make it trustworthy, or even comprehensible. Just because someone, even another scientist, can see the introduction, methods, and findings of a study doesn’t mean they appreciate the way that work advances the field, the care it takes to do it, or the way it addresses the biggest questions people are asking. It doesn’t mean they trust the authors.

What builds trust is not just open papers, but open processes — the way authors share their data, and what form it’s in; the way the authors of any study commit to engaging, or how publishers set them up to do that, and with whom; authors’ ability to articulate what they know, and what they don’t; and publishers’ willingness to stand up for research they’ve published in high-stakes settings.

In recent years, some of the biggest tests of public trust have come from seemingly contradictory results being discussed in formats that lack space for nuance, from research misconduct cases, and from high-profile debates about science among policymakers. Sometimes mistrust stems from the way scientists communicate.

A lot of the coverage and discussion of these issues — from reporters, policymakers, and the public — asks more from scientists, and from journals.

As journal publishers, we can debate the virtues of these critiques. But the current political and media environment challenges those of us committed to our missions to look at who is asking questions about science a little more closely. Which questions have merit? Which can we answer in ways we’re well-positioned to do?

At the Science Press Package team at Science Magazine, we have been thinking about small opportunities to meaningfully respond to good-faith queries about the scientific process and the studies it produces. In a recent keynote for the Society for Scholarly Publishing’s (SSP’s) New Directions Seminar, I got the chance to discuss several experiments our team has attempted with the goal of replacing public doubt with public confidence.

A Conversation Instead of a Collision

Back in the spring, my team and I found ourselves in a tough spot. Each week, we work to communicate new research to reporters under embargo. We want to inspire accurate, nuanced coverage. But one paper coming up in our pipeline made us pause.

It was a study on taurine, an amino acid, and its impact on human aging — a topic guaranteed to make headlines. The catch? Two years earlier, Science had published another taurine study that seemed to say the opposite. The earlier paper had reported that taurine levels decline as humans age and that this decline drives poor health. The new study, however, found no evidence of such a decline.

On the surface, the two papers appeared to contradict each other. And in a world where a single contradictory headline can ricochet through the internet, such an outcome is worrying. It can contribute to the “whiplash” the public often says it can feel about research studies.

So, when these two taurine studies landed in our laps, we asked ourselves: how could we ensure both were understood accurately — and in context — without eroding trust?

As we analyzed the new study, it was clear that the two papers were methodologically different. Still, explaining that nuance in a press release wasn’t enough. We needed a format that could show, not just tell, how science builds cumulatively, through difference and debate.

That’s when we had an unconventional idea: what if we invited the authors of both studies to talk to reporters at the same time?

It felt risky. And we’d never hosted a briefing that juxtaposed differing findings in real time. But we believed that if handled carefully, this could show reporters — and the public — how science as a process works and aims to serve them.

To our delight, both author groups and the handling editor said yes. We held prep sessions with each team. And when the embargoed press briefing finally took place, it was one of the most candid and collegial discussions we’ve ever seen. Reporters witnessed real scientific discourse — complete with disagreement and mutual respect. One journalist even commended the authors for their “admirable restraint” in critiquing each other’s work.

When the embargo lifted two days later, many news stories reflected exactly what we’d hoped: not contradiction, but complementarity. An NBC News reporter who attended sought a quote from an outside expert for her story that represents an excellent example of what we’d hoped to convey: “The two papers are a good example of how science can work… Although the findings are very different, ‘that doesn’t mean one is right and one is wrong.’”

For us, this experience crystallized a core belief: trust isn’t built by perfect consensus, but by showing the process — including its tensions — in full view.

Breaking the Silence

Another big test of public trust in recent years has come not from contradictory results, but from retractions and research misconduct cases.

At SSP’s New Directions Seminar, I shared how our team talks to reporters from different outlets each month. We ask them how we can help support their science storytelling goals.

Recently, one topic has surfaced as an area of interest for almost every outlet: research fraud. Reporters are paying attention to problems in the literature. They’re seeing them raised on PubPeer, on social media, and by sleuths. They want to know why research misconduct is happening more often, in part because they’re an extension of the public’s interest. And now the public is interested.

Over the past year at the Science family of journals, our editors and communications team have been working to strengthen how we — and our authors — navigate these difficult moments. We’d already been publishing editorials encouraging swift, transparent correction of the scientific record, and calling for rethinking retraction policies to separate validity judgments from the often-slower process of a misconduct investigation. But we realized we were missing something: support for authors facing the media.

When a paper is questioned or retracted, reporters often want to explore the situation. But too often, authors refuse to talk. Their instinct is to go silent, fearing reputational harm. Unfortunately, that silence leaves a void that can make them, and science itself, look worse.

So we created a set of practical tips for authors — guidance on how to engage with journalists during research integrity crises. We gathered input from Science journal editors, university press officers, press officers at other publishers, investigative reporters, and research integrity experts. The advice we assembled emphasized humility, responsiveness, and transparency — even suggesting authors share data with reporters as a gesture of openness.

We announced the tips in a February editorial titled Breaking the Silence. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Harvard’s Maya Sen noted that encouraging authors to engage could also help their institutions show a real commitment to integrity.

Since then, we’ve continued to treat these author tips as a living document. I’ve spoken with researchers who retracted their work before the tips existed, who thank us for this effort and call on journals to do more to give them cover with their institutions so that they can speak to journalists in these moments.

Meeting Policymakers Where They Are, Explaining Journals’ Value

In my keynote at SSP, the final way I talked about engaging — to show the value of journals and to discuss how journals can help build trust — took us to Capitol Hill.

Personally, I’ve never experienced anything like the last few years in terms of policymakers’ interest in our journals. When our Editor-in-Chief testified before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic last year, explaining how we handle COVID-related research, the committee chairman told him that it changed his understanding of what journals do. That’s just the kind of bridge we want to build.

Hearings are also part of the way that Congress establishes a record on topics that many people care about. If you prepare a written testimony, you’re preparing it not just for the people in the room, but for an audience that’s much wider. I didn’t realize that until I saw how much our own testimony from the 2024 hearing was referenced.

Lately, some of my colleagues at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and I have been meeting with policymakers on Capitol Hill for something much less nerve-wracking than a hearing. We’ve been discussing AAAS’s approach to public access. In almost all these meetings, though, staff ask, “Besides peer review, what do publishers actually do?”

That question has been clarifying to me. If policymakers don’t understand the work publishers do and the value they add, it’s no wonder the public doesn’t either.

When policymakers ask what else we do, we’ve talked about some of the efforts I laid out in the SSP keynote, including the briefing we set up to give authors with seemingly opposing findings a chance to dialogue. After we explain all this, policymakers we’ve so far have been really surprised and appreciative.

We want more people on the Hill to know about the processes behind our work to vet, curate, and publish work. We also want them to be more aware of what we’re publishing, week to week – the actual studies

In January 2024, our team did something focused on getting research to policymakers. We launched a new offering for reporters who reach policymakers. We call it Policy Pak. We launched it because we had read a report about policymakers’ media habits. It said that if there one was form of media both Democrats and Republicans are consuming more, it is newsletters.  But, at the Science press team, we had not been reaching the reporters at those newsletters.

In the last nearly two years, we’ve seen such success with Policy Pak, leading to news stories on our studies in key outlets, that now we’re doing something new. Just in the last few weeks, we’re making a version of it available to policymakers directly. Select committee staff are now getting the post-embargo version of Policy Pak. That includes 250-word summaries of research our team has written, and author contact info readily displayed.

We’ve heard from our authors, as you probably have, too, that connecting them with policymakers one time can lead to relationships that last years. In June, relatedly, we collaborated with our colleagues at AAAS’s Center for Scientific Evidence in Public Issues to set up one of our authors to participate in a briefing where she connected with policymakers from over 40 states. The Science author was thrilled. And the policymakers said the webinar was extremely helpful.

I think publishers have great opportunities here, connecting authors and policymakers on key issues, where policymakers need help urgently. We have confidence that if we continue to give policymakers high-quality peer-reviewed evidence, today’s unused study could be a cornerstone of decision-making tomorrow, when the pressure’s on to act.

Owning the Knowledge — and the Responsibility

This is International Open Access Week, with a theme asking, “Who owns the knowledge?” For me, I feel we cannot answer that question without considering who is willing to go to bat for research in a public setting, when the stakes are high.  As publishers, when we do this — especially in today’s environment — it really sets us apart.

Every case looks different. That’s for certain. And we as publishers don’t have endless time. But by being committed to these cases, where we can, when we can, we can help. We can catalyze the communications that help replace public doubt in scientists — and in their institutions — with public confidence.

I like to think that maybe someday, instead of all the emphasis on “publish or perish,” the public will see how scientists publish with purpose, and how they stand behind their work, too.

What We’ve Learned: Five Recommendations

The experiments we’ve tried at Science are small. But together, they’ve shown us what can make a difference to audiences with good-faith questions. Here are five takeaways we think other publishers and communicators might build on:

1. Pair openness with explanation. Open access is a foundation, not a finish line. Publishers add value by helping audiences interpret the science — through context, expert commentary, and narrative framing. There is room to be creative here, and our experiments have shown us that authors enjoy this creative process.
2. Show science in process. Don’t hide debate or uncertainty. Invite it into the room (one author group that did this beautifully in a press briefing highlighted their related outcome here. Feedback from the authors who participated in our taurine briefing is here.). When researchers engage directly, the public sees that disagreement is part of discovery, not a symptom of dysfunction.
3. Equip authors for transparency. Provide practical support when papers are questioned or retracted. Encourage authors to talk with reporters, even briefly, to humanize their work and own their part in the process.
4. Model integrity publicly. Publishers should be visible not just when papers succeed, but when problems arise. That visibility builds credibility with authors, readers, and policymakers alike. In a recent Editor’s blog about a paper we retracted, Science Editor-in-Chief Holden Thorp noted, “With this retraction — and with all retractions and corrections — we acknowledge and take responsibility for the role that we played in the paper’s publication.”
5. Tell our own story. Policymakers, journalists, and the public need to understand what publishers actually do. Sharing that story — clearly, candidly, and often — is part of our responsibility.