Some Professors Know that Publishing Pressure is Toxic

hi everyone my name is Andre I'm researcher studying Power Systems some time ago I made a video titled declining value of papers in Academia in that video I discussed the problems of the publishing pressure and their impact on researchers especially young researchers since then many students have approached me asking questions such as should I join Academia if it is broken and I don't want to publish many useless papers I have been thinking about these questions for some time and I have also discussed them with my peers and with more senior colleagues with professors what I noticed is that many good professors actually know about the publishing pressure problems they know that students can be burned out they know that some researchers can try to cheat and use unethical publishing practices in order to increase their number of papers and citations but most importantly they are tired of thousands and thousands useless lowquality Publications flooding their fields their TI of reading and reviewing such Publications and they are tired of competing with such works so I noticed that many good professors try to stop playing this publishing game and instead focus on their reputation social networks research impact team development Etc in this video I want to tell you three stories that I heard uh in my field about the publishing pressure problems and my goal is to show you that Academia is not completely broken if you find the right people to work with so let's begin the first story that I want to tell you today is from Denmark it is actually not a story but rather the opinion of one famous Professor from Denmark I met him in person uh at a conference and I took that opportunity to ask him what he thought about the publishing pressure he told me that the publishing pressure is bad and he knows about that and that the number of papers is not the most important thing in Academia then he mentioned a few names of his post dogs who are successful but publish only two three papers per year and he mentioned that uh this is okay not to publish a lot I was not very happy with his explanations and example so I said okay you have great talented postd dogs and they publish only their own original works that's okay no problem with that but have you heard about PhD students and researchers who published more than 10 papers during their phds do you know about such practices at that point uh the Professor laughed and he said if a postdoc approaches me and says I published 10 papers during my PhD I will answer thank you goodbye I think this is a funny answer but what he really meant was that he didn't care about the number of papers he would rather prefer to work with motivated talented energetic students rather than with a publishing machine with a suspicious publishing background and this is the point of today's video I want to show you that good professors are looking for good people to work with they're looking for Motivated talented students to complement their teams they no longer need people only for the sake of publishing and here we come to the second story from Chile this is a ridiculous story it is a bit sad but very instructive and I want to share it with you so The Story Goes that one University in Chile was looking for a postdoc they announced a position with a very competitive International recruitment process uh which means that many students from all over the world applied for this position and in the end one guy got the job the guy the poog was uh not from Chile he was from another country he was selected because of the best CV and the highest number of Publications and citations so basically the committee assumed that he was the best uh candidate the best researcher for that role with the greatest experience then unfortunately after one year his contract was terminated why well because his team and his Department was not happy about his research attitude the postdoc turned out to be a loner with the aim of writing papers that is he was not really socializing with others not supporting others not contributing to the team the main focus was only on writing more papers and as I said this is a sad story it shows that some young researchers grow under the publishing pressure and then they believe that their entire career and work should revolve around the number of papers and they keep working only on the number of papers this story shows that the extreme focus on papers can sometimes backfire and I believe that many people in Academia should know about such stories not to repeat these kind of mistakes now the last story that I want to share with you is a positive one it is rather not a story but a job announcement that I have recently seen in the Power Systems research Community the post was written by Professor nand AO from the University of Melbourne Australia and let me show you this message we can see in this email that the University of Melbourne is looking for three lecturers or senior lecturers then in the second paragraph it is said our focus is on the quality and impact of the research of the candidates as well as their ability to work with the power industry and the government the number of Publications is not what matters I believe this is a great position advertisement it clearly says that they are not looking for lectures with hundreds of Publications instead they are looking for people with skills uh research impact and ability to work with industry and government I hear this more often now that professors are looking for researchers with Team mentality this usually means that a researcher should be a responsive person supporting others supporting other students contributing to different projects and activities of the the team having decent public speaking skills and so on some departments now realize that they do not need isolated researchers working only on papers they need people with Team mentality which is good to see so what to do about the publishing pressure as I said uh many students have recently approached me with questions like is it still worth pursuing PhD considering that Academia is broken I don't want to play this game and publish many useless papers will Academia change and become a better place the point of this video is to tell you that we don't know yet if Academia is changing or not but you can select your own academic path you can select people to work with and actually there are many adequate professors who know about the publishing pressure problems so during your next PhD or postdoc interview you can ask about this problem you can say that you want to focus on Theory new models ideas experiments collaborations but not on the number of papers see how they will respond to that some good professors like to say that their goal is to improve you as a researcher and as a person which sounds great but if a professor says that oh no you have to publish two papers during your first year then four papers during your second year maybe you might want to run away from that team so my point is don't be afraid of asking questions about the publishing pressure pressure and the publishing expectations in fact that's what I do during my interviews I will be joining Imperial College London soon and during that interview I asked questions about the publishing expectations I said that I know many people at Imperial College publish a lot I don't want to publish that much and burn out so I said uh what is your position regarding the expected number of papers per year and I liked the professor's response he said that I don't need many papers from you I would prefer just one paper that could change the world and then he clarified uh don't worry if we work hard and find something interesting the papers will come but they are not the priority I believe this is a great answer and a great research mindset this is why I'm staying in Academia and joining Imperial College London and I recommend that you do the same do some research about your professor's publishing style and reputation and then during the interview ask them directly about their publishing expectations explain them that you don't want to focus only on papers please note that even if you join a team of good professors this still doesn't solve all the problems of Academia for example the problem of the declining value of papers will still exist this means that you can spend few years writing a journal paper and then no one will read it this is a discouraging experience and this can happen but if you consider consider this experience of writing papers and PhD as a growth as your professional and personal development then the situation is not that bad remember that you don't have to build an academic career you can write your PhD then if you want you can travel and do research for a few years as a postdoc and then with all that experience you can leave Academia so if you hear people saying that Academia is completely broken don't think that it is not worth considering PhD and research opportunities I hope you find today's video useful uh please let me know if you have any other questions about the publishing pressure problems and feel free to suggest any other relevant topics that you would like me to cover see you soon bye

Channel: ChuScience

Views: 2,467

Keywords:

Id: NEJDc307umY

Length: 9min 44sec (584 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 19 2024