An over-reliance on publishing has left scientists prey to unscrupulous practices

In Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll writes: ‘Humans are animals that like to write letters’. To paraphrase, ‘Scientists are animals who like to publish papers’. Or maybe it’s not that they like to, but because they have to. Early career researchers in particular are under constant pressure from the publish or perish culture of academia, where the metrics used to assess researchers primarily focus on number of publications rather than quality. It’s therefore not surprising that some academics fall prey to predatory publication practices.

While teaching a class on research and publication ethics, I was struck by how predatory journals are a lot like natural predators – with scientists as their prey. (Though some unscrupulous researchers take advantage of this way of communicating their work and might become victims of their own making.) As bait, predatory journals use the metric system used for evaluating scientists. They trap researchers by presenting inflated impact factors, featuring fake editorial boards that falsely list respected scientists and even better mimic of legitimate journals. Predatory journals camouflage themselves by misrepresenting how they select articles for publication, claiming to use peer review when there are in fact no quality controls or other checks. Furthermore, they keep increasing their hunting base, using mass emails to identify their next target and invite researchers to guest edit a special issue (bringing in more of their network). Even a seasoned academic veteran can fall prey to such attacks.

As long as researchers continue to show an insatiable appetite to publish as quickly as they can in journals with high impact factors, it is almost impossible to eradicate predatory publishing. And this appetite will continue as long as publications are the main tangible outcome of scientific endeavours – as long as they are what make researchers visible to their peers and help them move up the academic ladder.

To create a thriving research community, we need to stop using peer reviewed publications as the main marker of success. Instead we need to find stable funding scenarios for supporting scientists, provide sustainable career growth trajectories, and develop a system that protects the interests of science. The academic community needs to value intangible work such as inculcating scientific rigour and ethics, and fostering leadership qualities in mentees.