To begin something is difficult; to keep something going is a different challenge.
Even when it is the right thing to do, if it does not yield economic benefit in the short term, it may be difficult to sustain.
Open science, including open-source software development and open data, is precisely such an example.
Everyone agrees these are of great importance,
yet when confronted with the immediate demands of an academic career or the short-term profit of a company,
putting in the extra work to make all of the code and data publicly accessible and reusable may not be a priority.
That is why individuals and organizations that not only embrace these principles but also persist with them over long periods are worthy of being recognized.
They act not merely for themselves, but for the whole of human society.
One of these organizations is the GigaScience journal. Since its founding, GigaScience has been at the forefront of open data science. Its initiative to build its own data repository, to assign curators, and to archive the data underlying accepted articles was truly pioneering, and other journals followed. Unlike traditional journals operated solely by editorial boards, GigaScience is, in effect, equivalent to establishing a full-fledged data center.
The recent news concerning GigaScience’s owners, BGI, laying off the entire editorial, software and curation team in Hong Kong on short notice, has filled us with both surprise and deep disappointment. They are the very people who established the journal’s identity and direction and made it an essential journal in biomedical informatics. Departing Editor in Chief Scott Edmunds wrote a passionate article sharing a retrospective on 15 years of innovation at GigaScience [1].
GigaScience’s work is not only about selecting manuscripts, but also about validating the underlying data and recording the necessary metadata for preservation. These time-consuming steps might appear to exceed what an ordinary editorial office is supposed to do. Yet, if we reflect upon the true role of research articles, that of sharing the latest scientific results, we must admit that it is the conventional journal that has become outdated. The age of handwritten letters and printed texts has passed; now is the age of computation. The work that GigaScience does to make sure that not just publications, but the data they are reporting on, is truly what the scientific community has long needed.
GigaScience has been a longtime sponsor of the Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC). Members of its editorial office have participated in BOSC and the encompassing Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference for many years, at times giving talks and serving in discussion panels (for example, Scott was on the 2025 Data Sustainability panel). Beyond their financial contributions and their support and hard work on behalf of open science, the people at GigaScience are our friends.
We sincerely hope that under its new management, the assets that were so painstakingly constructed will be preserved and further developed for years to come. And to those talented and brilliant members who were let go — Scott, Nicole, Chris, Peter, Mary Ann, Bastien, and Ken — we wish you bright and fortunate opportunities ahead. From our hearts, we hope that we may once again see you at scientific meetings, still burning with a passionate commitment to open science and open publication.
Reference:
Edmunds, S. (2025, September 17). And it’s goodbye from me. GigaBlog. https://doi.org/10.59350/hzfr4-z0881
Signed by the following, many of whom are or have been members of the BOSC organizing committee or Open Bioinformatics Foundation, including board members. You can add your name via a pull request:
- Tazro Ohta
- Nomi Harris
- Peter Cock
- Mónica Muñoz Torres
- Chris Fields
- Bastian Greshake Tzovaras
- Deepak Unni
- Hervé Ménager
- Hilmar Lapp
Post-publication signatories (alphabetical, please make a pull request by the end of October if you wish to add your name):
- J. Harry Caufield
- Nicola Soranzo
- Daniel Mietchen
