It is a sad reality that while higher education institutions derive a misplaced sense of psychological satisfaction from perceived improvements in excellence and equity, corporate publishers reap most of the tangible benefits in the form of academic processing fees and journal subscriptions. The excessive focus on publications harms teaching. Faculty members tend to prioritise publications over student interaction and teaching. Some even tend to view teaching as a wasteful activity, as it brings them neither recognition nor financial benefits.
Higher education and research institutions worldwide pressure their faculty and researchers to continue publishing as many papers as possible in peer-reviewed, refereed, indexed, and non-predatory journals with a high impact factor.
Research publications have become an essential determinant of excellence in the contemporary context of accreditation and ranking. Today, higher education institutions often appear more concerned about being reckoned amongst the best in the world than actually investing in excellence.
The excessive push to publish or perish has led to innumerable pitfalls and malpractices. Predatory journals, pay-to-publish schemes, plagiarism, and trading of credits and authorship for money or to curry favours have been some of the issues. While academia struggles to address these challenges, a few large global corporate serial publishers are thriving, making billions of dollars in profit from the excessive demand on faculty members to publish.
Predatory journals, pay-to-publish schemes, plagiarism, and sharing credits and authorship for money or to curry favours have been some of the issues.
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A class action antitrust suit pending in a California court since September 2024 against the six largest academic publishers highlights the perils. These publishers collectively account for approximately 53% of the scholarly publishing market. The plaintiffs claim that these publishers constitute a cartel by conspiring to “unlawfully appropriate billions of dollars, which could have otherwise funded scientific research”.
For reference, the RELX Group, the parent company of Elsevier, which owns SCOPUS, reported a revenue of £9.63 billion in 2024. Clarivate, which runs the Web of Science, generated a revenue of $2.56 billion during the same year. Interestingly, they generate revenue not only through sales and subscriptions but also by charging hefty processing fees.
They require authors to pay for the processing of their paper for publication. Unlike typical businesses that incur heavy costs to acquire their wares, serial publishers obtain them for free, with all costs borne by the suppliers, i.e., the authors themselves. Even the quality checks come at no cost, as they don’t pay a dime to the reviewers. Fellow researchers are supposed to do peer reviews for free as part of their academic and professional responsibility.
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The only expense they incur is the cost of editing and publishing the papers, distributing and marketing them, but most importantly, lobbying for the indispensability of their product. They fear no price elasticity. Their products are uniquely distinct and have no near rivals. This enables them to charge prices as they deem fit. No wonder they operate at a net margin as high as 40%, mainly due to the prevailing ‘publish or perish’ culture in academia.
Thanks to accreditation and ranking overdrive, the ‘Publish or Perish’ culture has now taken hold of academia in the developing countries, including India. Publications have become vital for higher education, with the number of papers, citations, H-index, and i10 index serving as key metrics to improve accreditation and rankings. Institutions, therefore, readily fund and incentivise their faculty and researchers to publish more frequently.
Teachers must establish their research acumen.
Faculty members have no option but to play the ball, as their appointment, retention, promotion, and tenure are all tied to their publications and citations. They are reminded that higher education is not only about disseminating knowledge but also about advancing new knowledge through research. Teachers are expected to prove their research acumen, and publications remain the closest proxy for this. Although imperfect, the number and quality of publications are still considered the primary measures of research performance.
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So strong is the current of this PoP culture that the higher education community has become a willing player in the game itself. Publications define their academic credentials, and scholars compete to be counted among the top 2% of scientists in the world, as listed by Stanford University in collaboration with Elsevier.
It is a sad reality that while higher education institutions derive a misplaced sense of psychological satisfaction from perceived improvements in excellence and equity, corporate publishers reap most of the tangible benefits in the form of academic processing fees and journal subscriptions.
The cost to higher education institutions is far greater. They spend heavily on journal subscriptions, membership fees for professional bodies and associations, and travel expenses for participating in seminars and conferences. Many also provide cash incentives to teachers for each paper they publish. Lately, the touts have also entered the fray, extracting their pound of flesh, as ‘facilitation charges’ from the research grants.
These extortionate expenses are passed on either to the public exchequer by booking them against research grants or to students, who end up paying not only for teaching and services but also for the funds that institutions splurge on the so-called research activities. Students are made to believe that this is necessary to provide them with quality higher education and to elevate their institutions to the pinnacle of excellence in higher education.
The excessive focus on publications harms teaching.
The excessive focus on publications harms teaching. Faculty members tend to prioritise publications over student interaction and teaching. Some may view teaching as a wasteful activity, as it brings them neither recognition nor financial benefits. Consequently, most teaching responsibility is relegated to teaching assistants and research scholars.
The class action suit filed in the USA, if decided in favour of the plaintiffs, may bring some reprieve. However, the academic community worldwide must rise to refocus its research initiatives. The national government must also contribute to safeguarding higher education research.
With approximately 1.7 million scientific publications from 2017 to 2022, India ranks fourth in the world in terms of the number of papers published and ninth in terms of citations. With over 50,000 higher education and research institutions, nearly 2 million faculty and 43.3 million students, India has a significant stake in addressing this issue.
Publishers could be persuaded to price their publications on a cost-plus basis and to discontinue charging academic processing fees from authors whose institutions subscribe to their resources. They must be urged to pay authors a reasonable royalty for using the Intellectual Property Rights created by them and to compensate reviewers for their time and efforts, as the publishers wouldn’t be able to sustain their supremacy without their support.
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