ABSTRACT:

Scientists are increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of articles being published. Total articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science have grown exponentially in recent years; in 2022 the article total was ~47% higher than in 2016, which has outpaced the limited growth – if any – in the number of practising scientists. Thus, publication workload per scientist has increased dramatically. We define this problem as “the strain on scientific publishing.” To analyse this strain, we present five data-driven metrics showing publisher growth, processing times, and citation behaviours. We draw these data from web scrapes, and from publishers through their websites or upon request. Specific groups have disproportionately grown in their articles published per year, contributing to this strain. Some publishers enabled this growth by hosting “special issues” with reduced turnaround times. Given pressures on researchers to “publish or perish” to compete for funding, this strain was likely amplified by these offers to publish more articles. We also observed widespread year-over-year inflation of journal impact factors coinciding with this strain, which risks confusing quality signals. Such exponential growth cannot be sustained. The metrics we define here should enable this evolving conversation to reach actionable solutions to address the strain on scientific publishing.

Source: https://direct.mit.edu/qss/article/5/4/823/124269/The-strain-on-scientific-publishing

BIO:

Dan completed his PhD at UCL with Kathy Homewood in 1998, a post doc with Bill Adams at Cambridge and then a short lectureship at Oxford, before moving to Manchester (the Global Development Institute) in 2005. He was awarded a personal chair there in 2012. In 2015 he moved to the University of Sheffield as Director of the Sheffield Institute of International Development. He joined The Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) at UAB 2022.

His research covers many aspects of conservation social science, rural resource management and livelihood change. He has published on the social impacts of conservation, capitalism and conservation, media and celebrity and large-N studies of NGO sectors. As well as working in Tanzania, he has also conducted research in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and India. He has published around 200 papers and chapters. His books include Fortress Conservation, Celebrity Advocacy and International Development, Celebrity and the Environment, Nature Unbound (with Rosaleen Duffy and Jim Igoe), The Anthropology of Conservation NGOs (with Peter Billie Larson), Prosperity in Rural Africa? (with Christine Noe) and Contested Sustainability (with Stefano Ponte and Christine Noe). In pursuit of this work he has held 2 personal fellowships from the ESRC and was awarded an Advanced ERC in 2022 for work on Conservation Data Justice.