For Sociology: Philip N. Cohen
May 21, 2026 · 47 min · 13 segments
What if academic research — much of it funded by taxpayers — were freely available to anyone who wanted to read it? That's the simple but radical idea behind **SocArXiv**, the open-access preprint…
What if academic research — much of it funded by taxpayers — were freely available to anyone who wanted to read it? That's the simple but radical idea behind **SocArXiv**, the open-access preprint repository that this episode's guest, **Philip Cohen**, founded in 2016. Philip is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the **2025 Kohli Infrastructure Prize for Sociology Laureate**. In this conversation, he takes us behind the scenes of the fight to make social science research open, faster, and more equitable. We later zoom out to tackle a bigger question: What happens to sociology when the government starts treating it as the enemy? **Guest** Philip Cohen Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland Founder & Director, SocArXiv 2025 Kohli Infrastructure Prize for Sociology Laureate **Chapter Markers** 00:00 — Podcast Welcome 00:45 — Meet Philip Cohen 02:17 — What Is SocArXiv? 03:23 — How It Started 05:03 — Why Open Access Matters 07:09 — Journals and Preprints 09:02 — Openness and Trust 10:29 — A Personal Origin Story 12:36 — Rethinking Peer Review 14:52 — Building and Funding SocArXiv 16:52 — Adoption and Resistance 17:53 — Who Uses It 20:03 — Pitching It to Researchers 22:36 — Versioning and Retractions 24:30 — Surprises and AI Spam 25:46 — The Flood of AI Papers 26:16 — Plagiarism and Access 27:51 — "Publish Less, Better" 29:15 — Beyond Journals 31:45 — Data and Review 32:50 — Post-Publication Review 33:40 — Rapid-Fire Questions 37:52 — Sociology Under Attack 42:10 — Lessons From Europe 44:26 — Questions for the Next Decade 46:04 — Closing Credits **Rapid-Fire with Philip** Book he wishes he'd written: *The Marriage-Go-Round* by Andrew Cherlin If not a sociologist: Rockstar Does his best thinking: Early morning, before the phone wins Sociological concept everyone should know: The sociological imagination Biggest misconception about sociology: That researchers already know the answer before they begin **Links & Resources** SocArXiv: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv Center for Open Science: https://www.cos.io/ Kohli Foundation for Sociology: https://kohlifoundation.eu/ *The Marriage-Go-Round* by Andrew Cherlin
What if academic research — much of it funded by taxpayers — were freely available to anyone who wanted to read it? That's the simple but radical idea behind **SocArXiv**, the open-access preprint…
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