(Tanzania) Tanzania’s researchers offered US$22,000 to publish in international journals – Nature (Syriacus Buguzi | June 2023)
We have written a bit recently about the deleterious and counterproductive consequences of offering large cash incentives/rewards for being published by a top journal. This can be especially true for poorer countries or where the salary of the average academic is modest. So, it won’t be a surprise for our regular readers to hear that our reaction to this story was, “What could possibly go wrong with this initiative?” Some countries, such as China, have banned the offering of such incentives/rewards. We believe it is rarely a good idea to offer such large payments based upon the publication of outputs. Fundamentally, this reflects a poor understanding of research behaviour.