Hello everyone. My name is David Baxter and I'm a graduate student in political science at the University of Alberta in Alberta, Canada. My research focuses on the large body of grey literature around gambling and gambling problems, including document analysis, as well as interviews with gambling researchers who produce grey literature.

I'm interested in the areas where there's friction between academic culture and grey literature practices, and how we might address these in next generation grey. I see this friction arising in two major forms. Firstly, for academics contributing to grey literature, that work is less recognized in their academic evaluation and career progression.

And secondly, for grey research itself, it's presumed to be of lower quality than academic literature and is thus often excluded from consideration, rather than being read in context. The theme of grey literature being unrewarded was common in my interviews with gambling researchers. One researcher based in the UK said, quote, I don't think it helps having that kind of hierarchy of publications, because you want good people to be doing the grey literature work.

You want people who are enthusiastic and driven and motivated, and you don't want them to be doing it only for money. It would be nice if they were academically rewarded for that, end quote. A second researcher based in New Zealand who produces peer reviewed grey reports plainly said, I've probably advanced

slower in my career than I would have if I'd been a traditional academic just publishing in journals. At this time, I'd like to thank everyone who completed the grey net community survey for this panel. My first agree slash disagree statement on the survey was, incentives for academics to participate in research published as grey literature must be improved.

With 39 respondents, 24 strongly agreed, seven agreed, and only two disagreed or strongly disagreed. Comments noted that the publisher perish model still only accounts for traditional academic publications, with one commenter noting that there are financial reward systems as grey research is often paid for.

For my second statement, which was peer review processes are the most important method for raising the profile of research published as grey literature, the results are more mixed. With 25 respondents agreeing, six disagreeing, and 10 in the middle, commenters raised several issues.

Firstly, some grey literature is reviewed already, albeit with some differences to the journal process. Secondly, blind external peer review is often impractical for grey literature, and in some cases is impossible, such as in commercial environments, and more broadly speaking, peer review itself is a flawed system and must be fixed first.

Other commenters noted that, nevertheless, review is important to test the quality of grey literature, and a clear statement of the review process is important. In my interviews, gambling researchers saw a range of quality in their grey review methods.

One with experience peer reviewing for grey research expressed frustration that some of his review comments were not properly addressed in the final publication, while others found that their grey report work was reviewed and scrutinized much more rigorously than any journal review process, making it their highest quality work. In summary, my interviews together with the grey net community survey have shown me that yes, we do

need to improve the career incentives for academics who do the important policy relevant research published as grey literature. But making grey literature mimic the journal peer review process is not the way to do this. Editorial processes for grey literature, peer reviewed or otherwise, are already in place and most are of sufficient quality.

However, I don't consider this a very profound realization, as sufficient quality is part of the current product definition of grey literature. For next generation grey, the ability to confidently search for and find grey literature will only grow in importance for the wicked problems we face today.

The current algorithms we use to evaluate researchers have serious limitations. The creator of the journal Impact Factor, Eugene Garfield, always believed it was inappropriate to use it as a measure to evaluate individual researchers. These limitations will be recognized and academics work in channels beyond the academic journal will be recognized.

Policy relevant research done as a public good and published openly as grey literature will be respected as part of a researcher's academic service. In countries such as the UK and New Zealand, researchers are starting to be evaluated on the impact of their work. While in Canada, research grants are requiring a knowledge translation and exchange

or KTE component to distribute the findings of the researcher more widely. Researchers will be recognized for this work alongside their journal and academic publications. The review processes that are in place for grey literature are for the most part good enough to do the job already. They just need to be recognized as being sufficient for policy relevant research purposes.

Change in perception of the standard of evidence is coming as the impact focus of academic evaluation emerges. Grey literature is not merely beneficial to science and society, it is necessary for science and society and its value will be recognized. Thank you.