#56 Publish and Perish

Hey friends

Some time ago, a professor suggested that I speak about a critical issue in research

Many researchers today are running a race

But it is not a race to discover new things or help society
It is a race to publish papers and get cited by others

Let me explain

In the academic world, success often means:

• Publishing as many papers as possible to get a PhD or promotion

• Climbing university rankings

• Meeting tough KPIs (key performance indicators)

Many young researchers are told that if they do not publish enough, they will fail.
But here is the truth: this system is broken.

I did a quick search in the Web of Science database and found some shocking numbers.

In 2024 alone, more than 14,000 research papers were retracted. This means they were removed because of serious problems.

That is a big jump from 2023, when more than 10,000 papers were retracted (according to Richard Van Noorden in Nature).

Who is leading this wave of retractions? Mostly countries that are still growing their research systems, often called "emerging" countries.

And here is something even more worrying:

Many fraudulent papers still make it through peer review, even with fake data or AI-generated images. (Remember the article with the AI-made rat image?)

What is going wrong?

The problem is how science is rewarded

In many places, researchers get prizes, promotions, or bonuses simply for publishing a lot. It is not about quality. It is about quantity

When we reward quantity, strange things happen:

• Plagiarism (copying someone else’s work)

• Selling authorship (paying to have your name on a paper)

• Citation markets (paying people to cite you)

• Faking data (you make up data)

• Paper mills (factories that mass-produce fake research)

And with new tools like AI, it is even easier to cheat

Also, you might be invited to join a research team. You work on your parts
But the final paper might have issues caused by your co-author(s)

Before submitting a paper a manuscript, all the authors of the paper approve (explicitly or implicitly) this is their research. So you all share the same level of responsibility.

When a paper is retracted, it could hurt the reputation or a researcher even if he/she didn’t nothing wrong

So, what can we do about it?

Some countries are already trying to fix the system

Take China, for example

A few years ago, they changed their research evaluation rules (see Li, S.Q., 2020).
Instead of rewarding only the number of publications, they started looking at:

• Research quality

• Social impact

• Real-world innovation

And it worked

China’s retraction rate dropped from about 23 retractions per 10,000 papers in 2018 to about 13 per 10,000 in 2023 (based on Web of Science data)

This shows that good policies can make a difference

But there is still a long way to go

What else should be done?
Here are a few ideas:

• Focus more on the quality of research, not the number of papers

• Teach students about research ethics from the start

• Make peer review stronger and fairer

• Use AI tools wisely, not to fake research, but to help check it

• Celebrate researchers who do careful, honest work, even if they publish less

In the end, science is not just about racing to publish
It is about finding the truth and making the world a better place

Let us work together to fix the system
What changes would you like to see?

Let us know in the comments!

As always, if you need clarification or assistance with your research projects, feel free to reach out to me, and I will respond

See you next Sunday!

Jamal

—

Sources:
Li, S. Q. (2020). The end of publish or perish? China's new policy on research evaluation.

Van Noorden, R. (2023). More than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023—a new record. Nature, 624(7992), 479-481.

My favorite things this week

1.    A session on the funding landscape with a South African institution

2.    The webinar on Tuesday about emerging topics in Research

P.S.: If you enjoyed this newsletter, forward it to a friend! And if you aren't subscribed, subscribe here.