Incontro programmato fra le iniziative promosse dall’Università di Catania nell’ambito del Festival dello Sviluppo Sostenibile 2025
Martedì 1 Luglio 2025 | Ore 17:00
Ex Cappella – Villa San Saverio, Via Valdisavoia 9 (CT)
ALBERTO MOSCATELLI – Chief Editor, Nature Nanotechnology
Alberto has a first degree in environmental sciences from the University of Urbino in Italy and obtained a PhD in chemistry, with distinction, from Columbia University in 2008. During his PhD he studied reactive intermediates of photochemical reactions in nanoconfined spaces. He then went to Carnegie Mellon University for a postdoc where he studied the photophysical properties of fluorescent polymers used in organic LEDs. He joined Nature Research in October 2010 and has worked at Nature Nanotechnology since March 2012. He has been Chief Editor since January 2022 and he is based in Berlin.
ABSTRACT
In this talk, I will take you on a journey through the history of scientific publishing with particular emphasis on the development of that set of pre-publication quality checks that is now known as peer-review. The term peer-review was coined only in the 1970s in the United States. What led to the creation of peer-review? What was there prior to that? The lecture will take you back to 1667, when the first scientific journal was established in England. We will see how various systems of refereeing evolved since then to serve learned societies, the increased specialization and professionalization of natural philosophers (later, scientists) and the growing number of commercial journals (including Nature, launched in 1869). I will end with a personal view on the current state of the peer-review system, as seen from within the Nature Portfolio.
