This is why we are so hopefully expecting more openness because scholars like us will benefit.
The traditional mode of operation in academia is about the trade of information and knowledge, not about sharing these goods for free with everyone who’s interested. This behavior is often criticized, because most of the academic results are produced by public funding. So privatizing these results for the personal advantage of single scientists is kind of an unfair act. But this is not the point we want to emphasize. Our perspective is about the exchange of information and knowledge in order to improve research. Not every scholar should work on the edge of his scientific discipline and the intersection with other ones. But we think every scientist should at least be concerned about what neighboring disciplines discuss on the relevant issues, on methods and theories. Why this proposal? Because we think this would improve the scientific practice and theory. All scientific disciplines are strongly influenced by general concepts, paradigms schools of thoughts. Being aware of this influence and critically reflect this situation is important but greatly underestimated. By seeing past your own discipline, the ivory tower effect, scientists often suffer from, is questioned by new ideas, different paradigms, methods and tools. Whilst being confronted with all these aspects, it is also important not to forget about the traditional way of doing research and to reflect critically on them. All these factors together will be a good starting point for a more self-reflected scholarship. In our opinion this will level up scientific epistemology as a whole. So let’s be open to think multidisciplinary!