“It was magical. He had his own way of approaching the problem, using electron microscopy and morphology, while I was working in biochemistry and genetics. We both wanted to answer the same question, but in completely different ways”, Professor Randy Schekman said enthusiastically when speaking about Italian researcher Lelio Orci during a discussion session with around thirty researchers from the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló. Today, he looks for people who can contribute new perspectives, not necessarily those with long publication records, but researchers who, like Lelio Orci, ask the same scientific questions while using different methods to find the answers. For Schekman, technique is not the most important thing; “the question is always what matters”.Schekman addressed the issue of scientific journals and open access. The Nobel laureate argued that “journal impact factors are a false and misleading number published by large commercial companies that take advantage of people’s insecurities”. In his view, the pressure on young researchers to publish is “toxic”. Although he continues to believe in scientific journals, he considers that active scientists should be responsible for deciding whether articles are published.
