The Misalignment of Incentives in Academic Publishing and Implications for Journal Reform

Authors

Jennifer S Trueblood
David B Allison
Sarahanne M Field
Ayelet Fishbach
Stefan D M Gaillard
Gerd Gigerenzer
William R Holmes
Stephan Lewandowsky
Dora Matzke
Mary C Murphy
Sebastian Musslick
Vencislav Popov
Adina L Roskies
Judith Ter Schure
Andrei R Teodorescu

Language

English

Publication Date

2-4-2025

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2401231121

PMID

39869806

PMCID

PMC11804702

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

1-27-2025

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Abstract

For most researchers, academic publishing serves two goals that are often misaligned-knowledge dissemination and establishing scientific credentials. While both goals can encourage research with significant depth and scope, the latter can also pressure scholars to maximize publication metrics. Commercial publishing companies have capitalized on the centrality of publishing to the scientific enterprises of knowledge dissemination and academic recognition to extract large profits from academia by leveraging unpaid services from reviewers, creating financial barriers to research dissemination, and imposing substantial fees for open access. We present a set of perspectives exploring alternative models for communicating and disseminating scientific research. Acknowledging that the success of new publishing models depends on their impact on existing approaches for assigning academic credit that often prioritize prestigious publications and metrics such as citations and impact factors, we also provide various viewpoints on reforming academic evaluation.

Keywords

Publishing, Motivation, Humans, Periodicals as Topic, Information Dissemination, academic journals, alternative publishing models, academic prestige economy, publish or perish culture, publication bias

Published Open-Access

yes

Recommended Citation

Trueblood, Jennifer S; Allison, David B; Field, Sarahanne M; et al., "The Misalignment of Incentives in Academic Publishing and Implications for Journal Reform" (2025). Children’s Nutrition Research Center Staff Publications. 194.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/staff_pub/194