An alarming number of research publications are being retracted due to an issue with accuracy or integrity. This has been fueled by a ‘publish or perish’ mentality in academia, writes Nham Tran.
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Universities and research institutes commonly rely on the rate of publications as an indicator of productivity. Higher education institutes are also ranked by their research outputs, with The Times Higher Education Index assigning 60% of its score to research.
These factors promote a “publish or perish” mentality, a term first coined by sociologist Logan Wilson in 1942. This environment creates pressure on academics to publish research, however, it has also resulted in an increase in fraudulent data. If this persists, the higher education sector, and research landscape, may lose its credibility and hinder progress in the fields of technology, climate science and medicine.
Published research can be retracted if there is an issue with the accuracy of the information, and in the last decade, there has been a significant increase.
More than 39,000 published papers have been retracted in the last decade, with an annual growth of around 23% each year. Plagiarism, duplicate publications, and fake data are some of the contributing factors in the surge of retractions.
Typically, a publication must undergo peer review by experts in the same field before it is published. However, the use of fake peer reviewers has increased tenfold over the past decade, with a link to “paper mills” - businesses that provide fake papers for a fee.
Changing the research model
Initiatives like the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment are pushing for change, instead evaluating research based on its quality and societal impact rather than citation counts.
Universities, research institutions and funding agencies need to improve their due diligence and hold those responsible for misconduct. Adding a simple question such as “Have you ever or been involved in a retracted paper?” on grant applications could deter further unethical behaviour.
Given that scientific research has made such significant improvements in our quality of life, protecting its integrity is of utmost importance.
Nham Tran, Associate Professor and MTP Connect REDI Industry Fellow, University of Technology Sydney.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.