Ep39: Senior Editor – Luigi Martiradonna (Part 1)

May 24, 2017 in Season 3
Photograph of Luigi Martiradonna.
Image credit: Stuart Higgins
How do you judge whether a scientist’s work is worth publishing in your journal? That’s the decision Luigi Martiradonna makes every day as a Senior Editor at Nature Materials.

Pressing the button and sending my decisions at the beginning was ... a shocking moment for me

In this episode we cover the basics of scientific publishing and peer review, plus how Luigi makes his decision to accept, or reject a scientific paper. And given the high number of submissions his journal Nature Materials receive, it’s more often the latter. We discuss how it feels to be responsible for such decisions, as well as the reaction some scientists give.

We also explore the role of the editor - and Luigi stresses how his job is not so much to say whether something is good or bad science, but to consider whether the paper fits the criteria of the journal.

Luigi moved from a research position at a university to become an editor - next episode we talk about his background and transition into academic publishing.

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