Description

This week, Thomas Spiteri speaks with Dr. Magdalena Skipper, Editor-in-Chief of Nature. Skipper has held the role since 2018, and has a background in the genetic sciences. She is also notably the first female — and only the eighth person — to lead the journal since its founding in 1869.

Skipper reflects on what she has worked to preserve and change since taking on the role, from deepening the connection between Nature's research and journalism teams to broadening the journal's scope beyond the natural sciences into engineering, social sciences, and clinical research. Drawing on her training as a geneticist, she discusses how evidence and rigor take different forms across disciplines, and why she sees no single "final word" in science.

The conversation turns to some of the defining pressures on contemporary research culture: the COVID-19 pandemic's paradoxical effect on public trust in science, the discipline-specific nature of the replication crisis, and the rise of meta-science as a lens for understanding how research itself is produced. Skipper also discusses Nature's move toward transparent peer review, the persistent inequities shaping who gets published, and why she remains fundamentally hopeful about science's capacity for self-correction.

In this episode, Skipper:

• Describes what she set out to preserve and change on becoming Nature's Editor-in-Chief, including expanding the journal's scope into engineering, social sciences, and clinical research
• Reflects on how her background in genetics shaped her thinking about evidence, rigor, and multiple valid paths to a scientific claim
• Discusses the COVID-19 pandemic's dual legacy: accelerating the adoption of preprints while eroding public trust in science
• Unpacks the replication crisis as a discipline-specific phenomenon and what Nature has learned from it
• Explains the growing role of meta-science, particularly at the intersection of psychology, human behaviour, and research practice
• Details Nature's move to transparent and, since June 2025, mandatory published peer review reports
• Addresses persistent inequities in scientific publishing and Nature's editorial efforts to counter "helicopter science"
• Shares why she remains hopeful about science's capacity for self-correction and its role in building a more equitable world

Relevant Links

• Nature Journal
• Nature Profile
• Begley & Ellis (2012), "Raise standards for preclinical cancer research" — Nature comment on reproducibility in cancer research
• Nature: Registered Reports format
• Nature : Transparent Peer Review initiative

Note: This conversation was recorded in October 2025.

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This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant scheme.

Music by ComaStudio.
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