Academic publishing – stuck in a prisoner's dilemma?

Academia today finds itself in a paradox. The 'publish or perish' mantra has spiralled into an uncalled race, where the finish line is quantity, and not quality. In this obsession to stack CVs with publication credits, research quality and integrity often suffer.

Between 2018 and 2022, research articles witnessed a 22.78 per cent growth to 5.14 million. Yet concerns over research integrity persist. In a 2016 survey by Nature, involving over 1500 scientists, more than 70 per cent failed to replicate another scientist's experiment, and over 50 per cent were unable to even reproduce their own results. Nearly a decade later, another survey by Nature, having more than 1600 researchers, reinforced these concerns, with the majority identifying a worsening reproducibility crisis while citing 'pressure to publish' as the prime cause behind it. This raises a question: Are we producing knowledge, or just running after volume?

When metrics misfire

Just a decade ago, a well-argued, meticulously researched article in a peer-reviewed journal could define a career. But today, we are witnessing the manifestation of 'Goodhart's law' which states that 'when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.'

Metrics like impact factor, h-index, and journal quartile evaluate research quality and influence. But now, researchers are falling into the trap of 'indicatorism' by being overly reliant on citations, and not discoveries. The result? Emergence of citation cartels, where a group of researchers join together to cite each other's papers to boost their citation scores. In extreme situations, some even resort to citation booster services, where they sell their research articles to third-party vendors in exchange for artificially inflating the citation count, often through bundled packages, promising, for instance, 50 citations within a month for a fixed fee.

Even conscientious researchers are caught in the grip of the principal-agent problem, as most of the institutions long for quality research (principal), but reward output spikes (incentives to the agent – the researcher). As long as institution policies continue to define success by numbers, the agent will optimise the behaviour, even if it leads to lower-quality outcomes.

Prisoner's dilemma in academia

Many researchers today operate in a cycle of churning out more papers even though focusing on quality would yield greater benefits for the academic community. This creates a 'prisoner's dilemma' in academia.

Suppose we have two researchers, 'A' and 'B', each acting rationally, meaning they seek to maximise their own academic success within the incentive structure they face. So, each must decide how to allocate time and effort, either towards fewer, high-quality research publications that demand rigour, originality, and depth, or towards frequent, low-quality outputs that maximise publication count. This is captured by a simplified prisoner's dilemma payoff matrix, where the numbers represent academic rewards (scores).

Table 1: Payoff matrix representing publication strategies in academia.

Table 1 indicates that if both researchers focus on high-quality, they receive a score of (3,3) each. This is the Pareto dominant strategy, where each researcher is aware that opting for high-quality publication demands rigorous work (even if fewer in number), which benefits both the integrity of the discipline and their long-term academic credibility. However, in doing so, their individual recognition may be delayed in a metrics-driven system, as quality research is often time-consuming.

But if 'A' sticks to high-quality while 'B' defects by going after lower ones, then 'B' gets a score of 4, and 'A' gets 1. In this, 'B' will gain a short-term advantage with quicker promotions. The same happens in reverse if 'A' defects and 'B' plays fair for high-quality. In short, if both choose low-quality over high-quality ones, they flood the system with fast-turnaround research works that may earn quick metrics and promotions, but are most likely to compromise scholarly integrity.

The dilemma here is not just about impact; it is about inputs – time, rigour, and intellectual labour. Evidently, cooperation yields the optimum collective payoff (3,3). But producing few high-quality papers does not guarantee recognition. It may simply mean invisibility in a system that rewards volume. Therefore, many researchers default to the dominant individual strategy of maximising output by publishing more even at the cost of quality, although it undermines the very norms research is supposed to uphold. This leads to a sub-optimalNash equilibrium of (2,2). The outcome? A system full of low-quality research papers that few cite and almost none remember.

Rise of predatory journals

This push for volume has given rise to a parallel economy full of predatory publications, built on misleading information, profit, and editorial malpractices. Internationally, Cabell's blacklist has flagged more than 33 thousand predatory journals in academia and over 26 thousand in medicine alone, underscoring the alarming proliferation of low-quality publishing outlets. But researchers from low- and middle-income countries, especially from South Asia, are still falling victim to it. This is witnessed by the fact that the majority of such predatory publications are exponentially growing in countries like India, Iran, and Nigeria through predatory open-access publishers.

It should be noted that predatory publishing is often mistaken for open access publishing, which makes research freely available and reusable. This confusion mostly affects the early-career developing country researchers. They experience the same pressure to publish as their peers in wealthier countries, but often lack access to proper guidance and mentoring. For instance, Iran requires students to publish to graduate, and Turkish universities offer monetary rewards for publications.

As a result, thousands of novice researchers turn to these quick, low-quality outlets in pursuit of academic progress by compromising the reputation, legitimacy, and integrity of research, denoting a classic case of the tragedy of the commons.

Recalibrating publication priorities

Academic publishing is a mirror of how we value knowledge, and right now, that mirror is cleft. The dilemma behind publication is not just affecting research quality; it is also contributing to a surge in article retractions from journal databases. Escaping this dilemma is difficult, but not impossible. The path forward lies in a combination of various strategies.

Empowering researchers for quality publishing

To begin with, offering courses in scientific writing, ethics, and evidence-based publishing could be beneficial for early-career researchers in reducing their reliance on commercial editing services, which can minimise issues like article retraction. In addition, encouraging researchers, particularly those affiliated with academic societies, to prioritise publication in established, peer-reviewed journals over predatory outlets could be a smart way to push back against the rise of such journals.

Institutional reforms

Individual efforts alone cannot solve the dilemma, and this calls for institutional reforms. In this regard, the 'Declaration on Research Assessment' (DORA), signed by over 3400 organisations from 166 countries globally, advocates for fair, transparent, and value-driven research assessments. It pushes for reforms in hiring, promotion, and funding by encouraging responsible use of metrics and addressing structural inequalities in academia.

Likewise, the 'Leiden Manifesto' outlines ten key principles to guide the responsible use of research metrics. It emphasises that quantitative indicators should support, and not replace the expert peer judgment, and that metrics must remain transparent, context-sensitive, and open to scrutiny. Crucially, it also advocates for valuing diverse research outputs, including relevant works in under-represented regions.

Quality-first assessment models

One should note that insightful research takes time, and this idea is now being reborn through movements like 'Slow Science Academy.' Their manifesto encourages scholars to prioritise long-term, quality research. While individual researchers can embrace slow science principles, persistent change requires universities to revise their promotion criteria, funding agencies to alter their evaluation metrics, and national research bodies to adopt comprehensive assessment frameworks like France's High Council for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (Hcéres) or Switzerland's Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) to address the prisoner's dilemma in academia.

The Hcéres employs a peer-review based qualitative assessment that avoids relying on bibliometric indicators alone, prioritising 'the scope of results achieved' over publication counts. Meanwhile, the SNSF has implemented DORA-compliant practices by replacing traditional publication-focused CVs with narrative formats to promote opportunities for quality publication, which now allow researchers to present achievements through 'short narratives'rather than 'extensive publication lists.'

Supporting non-commercial publishing

National policies should also prioritise equitable access to publishing resources, especially for researchers in low-income settings, to prevent further exploitation by low-quality predatory outlets. In this regard, AmeliCA in Latin America has initiated an affordable no-APC open access model that allows researchers to publish quality work without commercial pressure. This approach keeps scholarly communication in academic hands rather than commercial publishers, reducing the financial incentives that drive both predatory publishing and the quantity-focused race.

A way forward…

To sum up, in order to uphold trust in academic publishing and to break free from the prisoner's dilemma, we need to start valuing research integrity, mentorship, and reproducibility, not just output quantity. Institutions should support collective platforms for transparent peer review, promote collaborations over competition, and adopt safeguards like removal of rankings that discourage citation manipulation. Without such reforms, academia may collapse under the weight of mediocrity masquerading as productivity.

Header image: Khashayar Kouchpeydeh on Unsplash