Surge in variety of ‘extraordinarily productive’ authors issues scientists

As much as 4 occasions extra researchers pump out greater than 60 papers a yr than lower than a decade in the past¹. Saudi Arabia and Thailand noticed the sharpest uptick within the variety of such scientists over the previous few years, in line with a preprint posted on bioRxiv on 24 November. The rise in these ‘extraordinarily productive’ authors raises issues that some researchers are resorting to doubtful strategies to publish additional papers.

“I think that questionable analysis practices and fraud could underlie a few of the most excessive behaviours,” says examine co-author John Ioannidis, a doctor specializing in metascience at Stanford College in California. “Our knowledge present a place to begin for discussing these points throughout all science.”

Ioannidis and his colleagues examined articles, evaluations and convention papers listed within the Scopus database between 2000 and 2022. They excluded physics authors, who are likely to publish giant numbers of papers as a result of authorship practices on this discipline differ from these of different topics. The researchers tracked how extraordinarily productive authorship has modified over time in varied nations and fields.

General, most extraordinarily productive authors outdoors of physics have been in scientific medication, which had practically 700 of those supercharged researchers in 2022 (see ‘Hyper-productive fields’). Agriculture, fisheries and forestry noticed the speediest development in extraordinarily productive researchers, rising by 14 occasions between 2016 and 2022, adopted by biology and arithmetic and statistics.

In 2022 alone, 1,266 non-physics authors revealed the equal of 1 paper each 5 days, together with weekends, in contrast with 387 in 2016. The accelerated development since 2016 was stunning, says Ioannidis, as a result of an earlier evaluation² confirmed that excessive productiveness was starting to plateau in 2014. “There was a really quick enhance,” he says.

Exterior physics, most nations greater than doubled the variety of extraordinarily productive authors between 2016 and 2022, though some nations noticed even larger leaps (see ‘Excessive development’). Thailand jumped from 1 extraordinarily productive writer in 2016 to 19 in 2022, the most important relative enhance of all nations. Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia noticed the most important development in absolute phrases, rising from 6 to 69 extraordinarily productive authors over the identical interval.

Thailand has solely a handful of authors who churn out large volumes of papers annually, however the sudden enhance in excessive productiveness is regarding, says Tirayut Vilaivan, a member of the Workplace of Tutorial and Analysis Integrity at Chulalongkorn College in Bangkok, which develops analysis insurance policies and requirements. “We can’t ignore that,” he says.

Underlying elements

The uptick may very well be pushed no less than partially by the nation’s research-funding system, which has switched to favouring giant interdisciplinary groups as an alternative of small teams, making it simpler for researchers to get their names on extra papers, says David Harding, a chemist at Suranaree College of Know-how in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. “Thailand has undergone a radical overhaul of its analysis ecosystem in an try to enhance productiveness,” says Harding.

One other contributing issue may be Thailand’s give attention to college rankings, that are underpinned by publication numbers and metrics, says Vilaivan. He provides that many universities within the nation use money incentives to encourage researchers to publish in distinguished journals. If researchers play their playing cards proper, they’ll earn as much as 1 million Baht (US$28,000) a yr by way of publications alone, he says .

The mixture of such a burgeoning ‘publish or perish’ tradition and a financial reward system creates fertile grounds for shady actors to flourish, provides Vilaivan. Throughout the pandemic, paper mills — unlawful companies that promote pretend papers to researchers — started surfacing in Thailand, he says.

Crackdown on questionable practices

However Thailand is starting to analyze researchers who’ve a suspiciously excessive variety of revealed papers. In January, the Ministry of Increased Schooling, Science, Analysis and Innovation investigated whether or not misconduct was happening at Thailand’s universities by inspecting researchers with unusually prolific publication data or a number of papers outdoors their experience. The probe discovered that 33 researchers at 8 universities had paid for authorship, with dozens of different folks suspected of itemizing their names on papers they’d purchased.

Ioannidis thinks that, to stem the rising tide of extraordinarily productive authors, analysis establishments and funding companies ought to give attention to the standard of a researcher’s work as an alternative of on the quantity of papers they publish. This is able to stop scientists from reducing corners. “The variety of papers ought to not likely rely as optimistic or adverse,” he says.