“Flashy results for fancy journals”. Or: “Rewarding researchers for the number of papers they publish results in a ‘natural selection’ of sloppy science”.
I’ve found this kind of statements, which seem to be based on serious research, in several recent articles that claim that science is currently suffering due to bad incentives for researchers.
Scientists, they say, are not evaluated and awarded by the quality of their questions and methods, but by publishing many high-impact papers with novel findings. Their number of publications is usually positively related to the amount of grant funding they get, which is the other basic measure of “success”.
The greatest discoveries take time, generally decades. But this requires carrying out studies that may fail. We can learn a lot from research whose results are not those we expected. But the short-term funding schemes prevent scientists from taking risks. They are incentivized instead to get positive results they can publish, even to spin their results to appeal to the public.
Some people say that all this is producing unethical science. In the field of biomedical research, there would be an “epidemic of statistical significance”, since the overwhelming majority of papers that include a p-value in the abstract present significant results.
I found this expression that was new for me: “p-hacking”. It refers to the practice used by some researchers of testing their data against many hypotheses, in order to report only those that have statistically significant results.
What is your opinion about this?
Do you think that researchers have bad incentives?
If so, do you have some ideas about how to solve the problem?
More information in these articles:
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/blame-bad-incentives-bad-science
https://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12016710/science-challeges-research-funding-peer-review-process
Yes, from one point of view, wrong incentives for scientists may trigger research of low quality and doubtful ethics. Under this context, money plays an important role.
Regards
Sience and research at large have become part of academic capitalism, namely a system of production (of papers!).
In my own view the problem is that most of research is basically minimalist: there is is but on tiny technical details.
Scientists themselves seem to have forgotten the importance of truth - in its heaviest sense. They just employees that seek improve their jobs and labour condiciones, period.
Funny story Prof Jorge , I have seen in a Canadian university where people (Prof +Students) get their names in the papers in the name of interdisciplinary or $$ or labs etc etc .
Now ,what are the outcomes just PAPERS !!!!!! Even patents get thrown away if not used , wonder what these people with 500+ papers do !!!!
One thing I know they claim FUNDS !!! In the name of research ...
Now , the best part of the story is the students who graduate are not even skilled enough to get into the relevant industry !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just do not understand how such a education system is RELEVANT ...
NO !!! not risk taking it is a commitment , it is having understood thoroughly it is about having a long term plan for ideas/work to survive beyond MY LIFETIME ...
Well it is disgrace , at least the ones I met in my Life time !!!!
Financial and time constraint are the most important factor which affects a researcher. Genuine discovery/ invention may not necessarily be taken place within these constraints but at the same time these should not be wasted means that it should at least add something to the existing literature. An exact conversion/relationship of input- output result is also not feasible. In general, publication in good impact journals reflects a good interpretation, progress of the research, investment in proper way etc of the researcher and so implies ability to conduct a research work in relevant area. To my limited knowledge, the selection process/ criteria depends a lot on the particular funding agencies and so the said problems may also be minimized by them under critical observation and not just by only a fixed rule which is not applicable to many special cases.
Regards
Chitra
Thank you for this question! The success of the scientist is unfortunately increasingly associated with the volume of Finance, money ... It is sad that the customer-owner of the money can ask you to prove that two plus two equals 5 or the number of PI equals 3 ... In today's world, this is the norm, because money in our world is primary. The solution to this problem may be to expand the criteria of scientific relevance (relevance, scientific novelty, practical significance, personal contribution of the authors, reproducibility of results) to all spheres of human life.
MK
p.s. According this question others questions and answers may be usefull or interesting :)
1 https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_mans_power_in_truth?
2 https://www.researchgate.net/post/Beauty_will_save_the_world
Interesting discussions. Your assertion is a sad reality in the academic community now
Sir,
I am not having sufficient knowledge to answer your question.
But during study on animals, I felt that it is not possible to get sufficient data in many cases.
In one study, I planned one animal experimentation on rabbit and I proposed to use of 200 rabbits. These are bred in our area and so should not be any threat to environment.
The Ethics Committee permitted me to complete the work with 42 rabbits.
Thanks.
This subject has been motive of discussion by many scholars around the world. It promotes the slice of the research proposal. Otherwise, the decision to be made is the very difficult. In my case, I decided to sponsor my own investigations. I dismissed the official agencies. In fact, this decision does not allow me to investigate in-depth most of my current problems, but I am confortable with myself. Sometimes, my results delays more than two years before sending it for publication, and journals have declined of my manuscripts because of the date in the methodology. Nonetheless, I also have conditions to work together with many scholars from other scientific branches in the University at Maringá where my data set have been useful to many fields. After all, it is a matter of choice. Best regards. Walter
Yes, from one point of view, wrong incentives for scientists may trigger research of low quality and doubtful ethics. Under this context, money plays an important role.
Regards
First point is the best minds are not being attracted towards Research, and also the metrics for measuring the work of Researchers are often not appropriate.
It is exactly representing our situation(s) today as a researchers.
Science has entered the economic production assembly line; real research breakthroughs need, of course, more time as the history of science teaches. On one hand, we have to make a living; on the other hand, we would like to see more true science, free from commercial prostitution. Not everybody has inherited a big estate like AvHumboldt; we have somehow to keep the balance and do ethically our best.
Obviously yes. And in some cases where there are incentives,good,serious and research focused scientists are lacking.....
Human beings in any categories everywhere in the world are the same .We may be either working in the office or if we are in medical or legal professional or if we are in academic field or sometime in the form of literature or social worker & such other related areas human beings generally have a tendency to observe the performance of other related personnel , they may in their inner heart right to compare which his contribution with the others & if he finds in his belief that his contribution is certainly have an upper hand , he may like to think & review the same in the negative thinking phase .
Research in science a person starts with his deep study ,deep thinking ,& fruitful guideline from his close associates scientist his starts with his own research program for his further progressive line he may in certain cases find & experience from the other scientist of repute who may talk a different language than what he thinks in such case he may get confuse in his research program but due to his study , such influence may not have a an direct in his research opinion
This is my personal opinion
I think yes. The logic of immediacy, based on productivism, is often rewarded with superficial research, and in this case reinforcing the concentration of academic and financial power of laboratories and researchers committed to fast science. I believe that perhaps further stimulating basic science in universities and at the same time funding more advanced long-term research could help us to achieve greater and better scientific advances with a focus on quality and ethics. It is somewhat similar to the logic of slow science. It is possible that, in this way, science can even regain credibility which, it seems, is being lost.
Yes. In the college and university education in India the requirement of publishing papers for promotion and getting other grades has resulted in the mushrooming of many journals of dubious origins and of course the papers are sub standard.
Research is really becoming affected by the fact that now most of the research is for gettinng the API points.
Everybody do not run behind money. Many individual researchers perform great jobs!
Personally I believe that research can be performed without good funding and good infrastructure also.
Concept and dedication are the factors work together in such research.
Following the question to more about this interesting issue raised by José Eduardo Jorge
The views expressed by Dr Jose Eduardo Jorge are exactly replica to the contemporary situations.
We cnt say incentives....Proper word would be the facilities like well developed labs...Tools whatever desired for research
There was a time when paper published had no added advantage. In the academic field, doctorate was not mandatory.The inclination towards research was not much and there were few journals published by the real research organization. At that time there were inventions. Research were research in true sense.
What I have seen is the degradation of Research and Development when it is thrust upon us. When competition increases, the quality actually should increase but in developing countries it deteriorates substantially due to economic reasons.Today it is difficult to find who is the original researcher- his citation is almost nil but even a review paper of some known person holding important Government position will have many citations.
Quality is dwindling whenever it is facing Competition and is linked with the " Gaining Money"
Dr Vibha Sharma has rightly said " In the college and university education in India the requirement of publishing papers for promotion and getting other grades has resulted in the mushrooming of many journals of dubious origins and of course the papers are sub standard.
Research is really becoming affected by the fact that now most of the research is for getting the API points."
Thus we are responsible for degrading the value of original research papers and free quality research journals.
Greeting all colleagues and friends
Very interesting answers, but the situation of dear Dr José Walter Pedroza Carneiro is just like me, I am my own sponsor and during last years have had many ups and downs !
I have found my exact path of researches and although have many problems but completely satisfy by being independent even if the results not been published!
Best regards, Parisa
Lucrative but wrong incentives form a sad reality in modern science. I agree that good, meaningful and worthy research takes time but the current structure of research projects and grants do not allow that in most cases. Money is obviously a very important stuff so it cannot be neglected but earning bucks at the cost of scientific ethics should be a strict no-no. Self-sponsored research can be fine but only up to a certain point beyond which it may become hard to continue. It can be advisable to encourage longer research projects sponsored by the government and even private funding agencies which do not encourage any compromises with the quality of science. Publishing in predatory journals and using project funds for that must be stopped immediately. Promotions at the workplace also must be made harder in order based on true, high research standards to increase the quality of work, not quantity based on poor research and rubbish papers.
Scientific advancement, at least in theoretical areas, depends upon individual not group imperatives.
This career based approach will produce, and does produce, volumes of bad science-certainly in medicine and elsewhere. The criterion of what good science is, is diminished and universities become replete with status-obsessed second raters.
There was a time when presenting a research and writing a paper and getting it published was a laborious task. The number of papers presented and published were very less. Now people present and publish papers literally at the drop of a hat.
I fail to understand how does it happen!!
Me parece que en todos lados, incluyendo en esta red y en mi país, se está premiando más la cantidad de artículos publicados en las revistas científicas de alto impacto y no tanto en la calidad de su contenido ni en la originalidad del planteamiento y resultados.
Mucho menos se premia a la aplicación de estos resultados en la población general, con lo cual, tendríamos el verdadero impacto de nuestros descubrimientos e innovaciones tecnológicas.
It seems to me that everywhere, including in this network and in my country, the number of articles published in high-impact scientific journals is being rewarded more and more, not so much in the quality of their content or in the originality of the approach and results.
Much less is awarded to the application of these results in the general population, with which, we would have the true impact of our discoveries and technological innovation
Perhaps allowing others access to the actual data for their research can add transparency and bring more confidence in their findings.
Debra
Jose,
As with most of the posts I also agree that research is being driven by the wrong incentives. The most significant pressure on my opinion is that of publishing for recognition which also incidentally contributes to advancement and better pay.
My main problem with this phenomenon is that authors are putting out papers that border on self plagiarism (which has been covered in other questions in RG and is a real problem). This leads to people with exorbitant amount of papers that give the appearance of being a prolific researcher, but on closer inspection is just a single idea beaten to death.
What naturally comes as a further inquiry on this matter is how to solve the issue. My personal take based on my research on patents is a reward system based on novelty and non obviousness of new paper submissions. this is a better criteria rather than quantity.
Hello everyone! Certainly the questioning is relevant and in relation to the contribution of the illustrious professor José L. G. Vigil, this is something that I also perceive in my country. In addition, in many quality journals, there are privileges known as "currency of exchange", in which evaluators accept articles from others, to have their own published works, regardless of their quality and, mainly, the applicability of the studies / final results.
Yes, I think scientific requirements neccesary for academic career development are developing more in quantitative than qualitative terms, which is sad.
yes, being a researcher entails a lot of effort and dedication and little incentive, although we contribute a lot to society, the effort is not compensated
I would agree with you. i think important information is getting lost because fancy journals wont accept the reports from persons who have really done some deligent work but their results do not follow a "certain pattern"
Currently scientific research suffers from the proliferation problem of journals. Many published articles lack originality, really new ideas. The progress of science requires sufficient time to mature ideas and culminate in their development. Unfortunately, funding for research projects is based on the number of publications appearing in "high impact" journals. I think wise researchers must come together to preserve the originality of scientific results.
The short answer is YES. In different countries we can find different ways of spoiling the science. In Mexico for instance, there is a huge pressure to publish a certain amount of papers per year, in order to have a reward income on top of the very low salaries. The horror stories are different for each country, but I think we are going through a very dark time for science.
Well Prof , as I have said what is the purpose of publication when companies take ISO /FDA/CE/gmbh .... certificates ?????
They develop products / software /regulate / at time take advantage (FB) and telecom traffics (Worst here ) ...
So really does anybody wonder !!!
No, research suffering because of wrong expectations from scientists.
Dear Jose Eduardo, it is a subject that I think it is necessary to discuss it at a good level and it must be born from the academy.
Unfortunately the dizzying world of "academic competition" and rankings have forced the excessive publication of articles that have not necessarily been rigorous.
I believe that research should return to its cause, which is to discover -without haste- and share the small findings with the academics of the world in order to grow in ideas and collaboration. This is missing.
I would like to give as an example the peer review for articles, in many cases the ego is imposed on the reason and many good research products lose opportunity to be published.
Could we create a new movement from the academy?
Is research suffering because of wrong incentives for scientists.....
it is to certain extent...I would say.
when people work to achieve something....their concentration will be more on that than research out put.
right reward at right time for the right person is definitely required to do good quality research but....
doing something just for sake of getting something is highly objectionable.
Good question and great answers. The bottom line of funding and research is the control of scientific advancement. It creates a pyramidal structure. The publication system permits through the editorial system and the anonymous reviewers to get a control of scientific progress. Patent system is similar. The multibillion dollars investments of private Co and/or military systems impose that scientific progress should be completely under control. Who has the money controls Science.
Therefore, we see the same “personalities” and their friends to control funds, journals, ethical scientific committees, Institutes, research positions etc. with no boarders’ limitations. These personalities are the Swiss knifes of scientific progress. The worst is that scientists lose their voice fast when incorporated in any system. Get money from Pharma or Biotech to do specific “jobs” or get the salary and the silence and control are established. So, carry a PhD or get a scientific position or be Professor or publish papers and get patents does not mean we are scientists.
A scientist to be scientist has to prove the ethical and social dimension of science at any moment. Ethics and knowledge and creativity are the only parameters that can validate the identification of a scientist.
To answer the question, research progress is suffering because the Swiss knifes are not good in science. To solve the problem we need to start speaking about corruption and status quo in all scientific fields.
In a democracy, Science should be independent and free as the Justice to consolidate social progress, truth and prosperity.
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