In this issue, Kang Hao Cheong and Michael Jones paint a picture of a world after COVID‐19 where recognition of the fundamental fragility and hyperconnectivity of our globalized economies and societies forces some big changes in the way humans live and manage socioeconomic development on this planet.^[1^] Research, and science in general, are not going to escape those changes. What we see today springing up in the way of virtual events will almost certainly be part of the norm in future. It will be good in the fight against pandemics, and for the environment at once. Will it also be good for academics in disadvantaged countries?

A 2019 blog post^[2^] (based on a small study) by Seth Wynes from the University of British Columbia a somewhat predictable pattern of travel activity is seen amongst academics: younger ones and female ones fly less to scientific events than older ones. The skewing of the distribution is stark indeed: 12.5% (one eighth) of the academics is responsible for 50% of the total flight‐related CO₂ emissions that result from conference (or other academic event) attendance. OK, the study was based on 1000 academics at a single university (University of British Columbia). However, those of us* who have worked in academia and continue to stay in touch with academia have a pretty good intuitive feeling that the findings apply more generally. Even more concerning is the observation from the small study that above a certain academic level there was no correlation between the number of flight miles and the academic performance of the individuals (based on a measure similar to the h‐index, i.e., taking into account quantity and quality of publications).

A UK study, also from 2019,^[3^] opines that some academics regard being invited to far flung locations as a perk of the job, given the long hours spent in and around their research groups (If they travel business class, maybe…). That study also estimates that if the professional travel activity from the UK universities’ academics were extrapolated to all universities on the planet, it would produce a mass of CO2 equivalent to half the UK's entire CO2 emissions from all sources in 2017! So, whereas we (see above*) know of many high‐level academics who travel internationally to four or more conferences a year (some even as many as 10), aren't we lucky that most professors in less advantaged countries of the world aren't invited to conferences (written with a tone of irony). I hope that there's another – more positive – irony in this, and it's related to the, admittedly also fragile, neutrality of the Internet. It would be nice to see more excellent scientists from disadvantaged countries presenting to international audiences via virtual events.

As the Internet – providing detachment of a scientific publication from its venue of publication (journal) – is partly eroding the power of the Impact Factor in the eyes of readers searching for literature via Internet search engines, so too can an increasing “virtualization” of academic presence potentially compensate for certain inequalities. Naturally, there are many IT companies rubbing their hands at the thought of an increasing number of large conferences having to take place virtually for the foreseeable future. Realizing that conference organizers will be saving many tens of thousands of Euros/Dollars/whatever in not paying air fares for invited speakers, some companies are charging princely sums for their virtual conference services – sums that arguably have little relationship to the true cost of the “product”: whilst airlines lose billions, another business sector will earn billions. None of this, however, does research institutions in disadvantaged countries much good: they can't afford such services. Moreover, heavy‐weight firms have the necessary power to hasten the attrition of Internet neutrality. Now, more than ever before, it is the responsibility of the global scientific community to work together to preserve Internet neutrality in the name of egalitarian global values in research, and cultural diversity – qualities from which science has always benefited. It will probably require individual institutes to set up their own – more affordable – technological solutions to virtual conferencing: they will need help from outside (other, more wealthy institutions), that is for sure. However, if they don't receive it, we will simply replace physical fragility with virtual fragility by allowing unbridled monopolization of live scientific discourse. The demise of important elements of antifragility in the Internet will lead to its own virtual pandemic in due course…

Andrew Moore

Editor‐in‐Chief

在本期杂志中，姜浩昌和迈克尔·琼斯描绘了COVID-19之后的世界，在这张照片中，人们认识到我们全球化经济和社会的基本脆弱性和高度互联性，迫使人们在这个星球上生活和管理社会经济发展的方式发生了一些重大变化。^[ 1 ^]研究和一般的科学都无法摆脱这些变化。我们今天看到的以虚拟事件方式兴起的事物几乎肯定会成为未来规范的一部分。这将有利于与流行病的斗争以及对环境的斗争。对处境不利的国家的学者也有好处吗？

不列颠哥伦比亚大学塞斯·怀恩斯（Seth Wynes）在2019年发表的一篇博文^[ 2 ^]（基于一项小型研究）发现，在学者中，旅行活动的模式有些可预测：年轻的和女性的参加科学活动的人数要少于年长的。分布的偏差确实很明显：12.5％（八分之一）的学者负责与飞行有关的CO ₂总量的50％因会议（或其他学术活动）出席而产生的排放。好的，这项研究是基于一所大学（不列颠哥伦比亚大学）的1000名学者进行的。但是，我们*在学术界工作过并继续与学术界保持联系的人们，有着非常直观的感觉，即研究结果适用于更广泛的领域。更令人担忧的是，来自这项小型研究的观察结果是，在一定的学术水平之上，飞行里程的数量与个人的学习成绩之间没有关联（基于与h指数类似的度量，即，考虑到出版物的数量和质量）。

英国的一项研究，也是从2019年开始的，^[ 3 ^]鉴于在研究小组内部和周围花费了长时间（如果他们是商务舱旅行，则如此），一些学者认为邀请他们到遥远的地方工作是一种福利。该研究还估计，如果将英国大学学者的专业旅行活动外推到地球上的所有大学，它将产生的二氧化碳量相当于2017年来自所有来源的英国全部二氧化碳排放量的一半！因此，尽管我们（见上文*）知道许多高级学者每年都参加国际会议四到四个或更多（有些甚至多达十个），但我们不是很幸运，世界上处于不利地位国家的大多数教授不被邀请参加会议（讽刺意味）。我希望在这一点上还有另一个（更积极的）讽刺意味，这与 诚然也脆弱，互联网中立。很高兴看到来自弱势国家的更多优秀科学家通过虚拟事件向国际观众展示。

由于互联网（使科学出版物脱离其出版物的出版地（期刊））正在部分地削弱影响因子在通过互联网搜索引擎搜索文学的读者眼中的力量，因此，对互联网的日益“虚拟化”也可以学术上的存在可能弥补某些不平等。自然，在可预见的将来，几乎必须举行越来越多的大型会议，许多IT公司为此大吃一惊。意识到会议组织者将节省数万欧元/美元，而不必为特邀演讲者支付机票费用，因此一些公司为其虚拟会议服务收取的费用太高了–可以说这笔费用与会议的真实费用没有多大关系。 “产品”：航空公司损失数十亿美元，而另一个业务部门将赚取数十亿美元。但是，这些都不对处于不利地位的国家的研究机构有多大好处：它们负担不起这样的服务。此外，重量级公司具有必要的权力来加速互联网中立性的消耗。现在，与以往一样，全球科学界有责任以研究中的全球平等价值观和文化多样性的名义共同维护互联网的中立性，而科学一直从中受益。可能需要各个机构为虚拟会议建立自己的-更实惠的虚拟会议技术解决方案：可以肯定的是，它们将需要外部（其他更富有的机构）的帮助。但是，如果他们没有收到，我们将通过允许实时科学话语的无限制垄断来简单地用虚拟脆弱性代替物理脆弱性。互联网中反脆弱性重要元素的消亡将在适当的时候导致其自身的虚拟大流行……

安德鲁·摩尔

主编辑