The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted academic lives differentially, not the least of which, those who have lost relatives and live with the effects of the virus. For other groups, such as carers and academic parents, the pandemic has brought about a sign…
Category: research productivity
Looming REF deadlines lead to a rush in publication of lower quality research
The increased significance of research assessments and their implications for funding and career prospects has had a knock-on effect on academic publication patterns. Moqi Groen-Xu, Pedro A. Teixeira, Thomas Voigt and Bernhard Knapp report on research that reveals a marked increase in research productivity immediately prior to an evaluation deadline, which quickly reverses once the deadline has passed. Moreoever, the […]
Transdisciplinary PhD programmes produce more high-impact publications and foster increased collaborations
Traditional doctoral programmes require students to gain in-depth knowledge in one subject area. Transdisciplinary programmes aim to foster synthesis across disciplines and focus on translating research findings into real-world solutions, helping students to develop a professional disciplinary identity that is enhanced by multidisciplinary methods and theories. Anna-Sigrid Keck, Stephanie Sloane, Janet M. Liechty, Barbara H. Fiese, and Sharon M. Donovan […]
Quantity does matter as citation impact increases with productivity
Many scholars are encouraged to focus on the quality not the quantity of their publications, the rationale being that becoming too focused on productivity risks reducing the quality of one’s work. But is this, in fact, the case? Peter van den Besselaar and Ulf Sandström have studied a large sample of researchers and found that, while results vary by field, […]
The most productive and influential economics researchers continue to gravitate to the US from the rest of the world
In all sciences there is a heavy concentration of the most productive and influential researchers in top US research institutions. Pedro Albarrán, Raquel Carrasco, and Javier Ruiz-Castillo‘s study focused on geographic mobility and research productivity in a selection of the world’s leading economics and departments and shows how increasing numbers of scholars gravitate to the US from the rest of […]