Booth School of Business
Published January 27, 2025 | Version v1
Journal article Open

The misalignment of incentives in academic publishing and implications for journal reform

Creators

  • 1. Indiana University
  • 2. University of Groningen
  • 3. University of Chicago
  • 4. Radboud University
  • 5. Max Planck Institute for Human Development
  • 6. University of Bristol
  • 7. University of Amsterdam
  • 8. University of Osnabrück
  • 9. University of Zürich
  • 10. University of California, Santa Barbara
  • 11. Amsterdam University Medical Centers
  • 12. Technion–Israel Institute of Technology

Description

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.

Data availability

There are no data underlying this work.

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Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1073/pnas.2401231121
Other
oai:uchicago.tind.io:14471

Funding

National Science Foundation
SES-1846764
National Science Foundation
SES-2242962
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
University of Chicago
IBM faculty research fund
European Research Council
101020961 PRODEMINFO
Humboldt Foundation
Volkswagen Foundation
European Commission
Horizon 2020 grant
European Commission
Horizon 2020 grant
Jigsaw
UK Research and Innovation
European Union
10049415
Dutch Research Council
Vidi grant
National Science Foundation
2222453
National Science Foundation
2243778
National Science Foundation
2322330
Raikes Foundation
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Schmidt Science Fellows
Rhodes Trust

UChicago Information

Division(s)
Booth School of Business
Department(s)
Behavioral Science, Marketing