Can #UK#academics explain these spammy emails from publication agencies who want to feature my academic articles? I've been told this this a scam, but I'm not sure how -- do they charge money to do this? Is this related to the dreaded #REF?
As far as I'm concerned, if some publication wants to write a feature based on one of my publications... go for it. You don't need to contact me about it.
@rwg@academicchatter not sure more than that! I get the mails and my adviser told me that so I just delete them. My research is getting a lot of focus so I get loads ATM, including pretending to be a particularly fav journal
Lots of funders/evaluations require showing public outreach, so it can be a mutually beneficial scam: I pay you to “feature me” and I can check a box with the funder (incl. big EU funding).
My guess is that many are “technically” based in the UK because the UK law makes it so easy and cheap to form a Ltd company. And at least until Brexit that also made it extra easy to “serve” all the EU based researches that needed “box ticking as a service”.