Publish or Perish: On the Perils of Profit-Motivated Academia
We should scrutinise the sources of our information, such as the researchers and academics we choose to consult. A relatively quick way we have come to do this is to look at the quantifiable number of publications they have in peer-reviewed journals. Academics must publish constantly or perish into supposed obscurity, to such an extent that the theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Peter Higgs (after whom the Higgs boson is named) has concluded that today’s research system would exclude him from working in academia.
The Reign of Quantity
On top of encroaching on the researcher’s space to think in peace, this focus on quantity may have further contributed to several well-documented problems. Preoccupation with simply getting published can lead to unreliable or incomprehensive low-powered research (if not outright fraud) which adds to noise obscuring the signals of more important academic work. Filling journals and databases with unreliable research skews the academic literature, which can be especially dangerous for people outside a given field who may find it harder to judge which publications will stand the test of time.
Publications are often judged by another quantitative measure: how often they are ‘cited’ by other researchers. The idea is that the academic community should, theoretically, be able to successfully separate the wheat from the chaff; it has not been as successful as one would hope. In fact, research in at least some fields is cited more often when it is unreliable. If academic researchers vote with their footnotes, then it seems that they may have largely supported novelty over quality when assessing the work of their peers.
“Falsity in intellectual action is intellectual immorality.”
Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin
Academic Prestige
Sadly, an average researcher’s sensitivity to status means that the flawed perception of one’s peers is often given more weight than is appropriate. Within academia, this preoccupation with prestige is more than an individual problem. The obsession with academic eminence warps the academic literature when publishers select work (at least partly) on the basis of an author’s prestige and position, or the novelty of their work (which would presumably enhance the publisher’s prestige). An institutional publisher’s prestige may in turn lead career driven researchers to forgo important multidisciplinary work for the chance to have their writing appear in eminent but narrowly focused journals.
Rational Interests?
To protect the wider public, regulators may pursue increasingly sophisticated methods to reduce the temptations for scholarly misconduct. Yet researchers are still burdened with the contemporary world’s pressures towards money and status. These ends make experts vulnerable to cutting corners and engaging in improper practices despite increased regulation, especially if they are acting ‘rationally’ in their self interests rather than the interests of pure truth-seeking and the wider society. But would this self-interest itself be rational? And should we assume that researchers are motivated primarily by self-interest? And if they are so motivated, should they be? Can we reasonably expect them to change? Or should we surrender to the need to constantly manage selfish interests through increasingly sophisticated administration, even when we are dealing with the fundamental issues of knowledge pertinent to all of society?
The Humanities
A proper exploration of these questions must be multifaceted. An empirical study of contemporary practices, attitudes and motivations–however sophisticated and comprehensive–would miss, for example, the historical perspectives that can illuminate alternative possibilities, along with the philosophical analysis of the theoretical assumptions underpinning accepted practices. It stands to reason, therefore, that properly rectifying academic research and practice must go beyond empirical analysis and regulatory reform; it must also draw on a principled consideration of insights from the humanities.
Broderic
HISTORY & LAW INSTRUCTOR
Broderic is a trilingual lawyer and educator who has been tutoring since 2013. He holds degrees in Law, History and Psychology with additional tertiary studies in languages, literature, philosophy, sociology and politics.
