As an economist, I have a feeling of relief that great economists such as Adam Smith, J.M. Under the POP culture, publications mean journal articles, and there is no place for books, whether they are textbooks or research monographs.
The adverse effect on studies of national benefit is enormous. Developing countries could allocate more funds to the alleviation of poverty if they did not have to pay exorbitant submission fees and subscription charges for the privilege of flicking through English-language journals. These days “international” journals are only English-language journals. At one time, the best papers in mathematics were published in Russian-language journals and the best papers in physics were published in German-language journals. For academics from all over the world, English-language journals are like McDonalds, Starbucks and Hollywood movies. The rush to produce publishable results may compromise the soundness and reliability of the results. Given the loopholes in the peer review process, papers with faulty results can and do get published. Under POP, the soundness and reliability of results matter less than the ultimate objective of getting a paper published. The findings of published research may be false or unreliable. Publications have become the end as opposed to the means to an end. Practical applications become irrelevant as academics haunted by POP write for themselves, not for the general public or policy makers. Most published research these days has nothing to do with reality. The soundness and reliability of results matter less than the ultimate objective of getting a paper published Albert Einstein published his most influential work without peer review and he always viewed the peer review process with contempt. When POP is the law of the land, the development of a novel idea is the opportunity cost of publishing anything, and publishing anything is important for the survival of the authors and for avoiding the possibility of perishing. This is so much the case because it has been found that the peer review process creates bias against new and innovative ideas. Under POP, academics scramble to publish whatever they can get in print rather than working on the development of serious ideas that may take years to produce a publication. Thank God that Albert Einstein did not live under the POP culture-otherwise, we probably would not have heard of the theory of relativity.
As a result, we can readily witness a destructive race to the bottom because the quality of published research has been deteriorating. Things have changed from publishing when there was something important to publish to the status quo of publishing because we have to, irrespective of whether or not what we want to publish is worthy of publishing.
The POP culture has resulted in the proliferation of published research at a rate that is disproportional to the advancement of human knowledge. In the face of these perceived benefits, the adverse consequences have been enormous.
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The POP culture does not teach academics how to balance research with other responsibilities-rather it encourages them to ignore other responsibilities (including teaching) and concentrate on research that is more often than never of interest to the author only. These perceived benefits are illusory, as academics are forced to publish anything rather than caring about the advancement of human knowledge, which cannot materialise under pressure. One can only wonder why publishing is given more importance than other academic duties and why publications represent the only measure of output or performance. Another perceived advantage is that it helps to identify and reward scientists based on merit and not on favouritism and nepotism. One perceived benefit of the POP model is that some pressure to produce research is necessary to motivate academics early in their careers to focus on research advancement and learn to balance research activity with other responsibilities. The POP culture has led to a relentless quest for publications – the sole objective being CV building rather than the advancement of human knowledge.Īcademics are forced to publish anything, rather than caring about the advancement of human knowledge “Publish or perish” (POP) is a phrase that describes the pressure put on academics to publish in scholarly journals rapidly and continually as a condition for employment (finding a job), promotion, and even maintaining one’s job. Imad Moosa explores the pressure on academics to prove their worth by publishing their work.
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