When I use a word . . . Research integrity sleuths

The “publish or perish” doctrine

Being interested in why people write, and having surveyed the musings of several well known writers, including Alphonse Daudet, Joan Didion, E M Forster, Neil M Gunn, Rayner Heppenstall, Stephen King, George Orwell, and Alfred Perlès, I have come to the conclusion, following the trail of the cacoethes scribendi, first laid by the Roman poet Juvenal, that the main reason for the itch to write is the need for self-comprehension. Or, as Stephen King put it, “I write to find out what I think.”1

Among others who have tackled the question of why they write, the Canadian writer Mordecai Richler repeated Orwell’s quartet of reasons (egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose) and recognised being “driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” However, he might have seemed to have failed to realise the source of this as a need to know what he thinks, had it not been for a throwaway remark in which he blessed the days on which “drawing on resources unsuspected, you pluck ideas and prose out of your skull that you never dreamt yourself capable of.” In other words, almost without realising it, finding out what he thinks.2

Richler, however, had one advantage that many other novelists have not had, having taken what he called a “reverse sabbatical,” namely working in academia for a year, which gave him an insight denied to others: “If stand-up comics now employ batteries of gag writers because national TV exposure means they can only use their material once, then professors, playing to a new house every season, can peddle the same oneliners year after year, improving only on timing and delivery. For promos, they publish. Bringing out journals necessary to no known audience, but essential to their advancement.” In short, without naming it, he had identified the “publish or perish” doctrine.

Following the trail further, I started to explore this phenomenon, which many dislike but appear to have become stoical about,3 defining it and describing its origins and adverse effects,45 and also describing proposed solutions to the consequent problems to which it gave rise.6

“Publish or perish”—problems and potential solutions

The problems that arise from the doctrine include, as I have previously described5: the increasing load of papers that journal editors have to deal with; increasing difficulty in finding reviewers; deterioration in the quality of papers being submitted; an increase in research misconduct, reflecting an increasing frequency of violations of academic integrity, i.e. matters of academic dishonesty or misdemeanours, such as fabrication or falsification of data, plagiarism, inappropriate gift, guest, and ghost authorship, misuse of statistics, concealing the use of AI, withholding information, for example about conflicts of interest, and selective or inaccurate citation; a burgeoning number of paper mills and predatory journals; wasted resources; a reproducibility crisis; stifling of innovation; increasing numbers of retractions of published work; increased burnout among senior academics and an increased reluctance on the part of trainees to enter research because of a fear of the pressures involved; and diversion of attention from teaching to research.

Most of the published suggested solutions to all this are no more than vague platitudes, which I have discussed in detail,6 and which I believe are unlikely to be of any use whatsoever in stemming the ever swelling tide of research misconduct of all kinds. This is primarily because the proposed solutions are likely to be ignored by those who are determined to indulge in acts of misconduct—in other words, the miscreants, the progenitors of many of the problems.

The only potentially effective solution that I have identified is eradication of the doctrine itself. In other words, dissociating academic publication from the rewards that it brings in the way of status and advancement. A good start could be made by abandoning modern forms of research assessment for the purposes of academic funding. But this is a solution that I do not expect to see occur, desirable though it may be.

Detecting academic misconduct

If little or nothing can be done to deter academics from misconduct, the next best thing is to detect and punish it when it occurs. In pursuit of this, it has been suggested that substantial violations of research integrity should be independently investigated by appropriately resourced specialists, completed rapidly, and followed by corrective action or exoneration as appropriate.7 The authors of this advice, all well known in the field of academic integrity, provide a clear definition of what they mean by “substantial,” define “rapidly” as being within a year, and describe other aspects of their suggestion in detail.

What methods are available?