actively promote your research via various channels to make sure it gets read by relevant audiences that can make use of it.Although there will be lots of tempting opportunities to publish, I want you to remember that QUALITY always goes before quantity produce only high-quality publications that address the specific knowledge gap and include a super-comprehensive analysis of your data or topic – three to four high-quality articles out of your PhD in respectable journals will carry more weight than 10 low-quality pieces of work.I trust these will help you to bring your research or academic career to the next level. Blueprint for successful academic careerīelow I share some of the objectives I set out for my career that enable me to prioritise my work. Having spent a couple of successful years in the academic environment, I have learnt that to be successful, you need to learn to prioritise the work that really matters. That is one of the reasons Magda and I created Motivated Academic! It means that if you are going to change something, you need to start to be living proof of that change so that others can follow. So how to achieve academic success? First of all, I want you to be brave to act as the catalyst for a change. If you are here, this means that you want to do things differently and you support a change of the research culture.Īs a motivated academic, I aim to lead the change in academia and, potentially, create a new culture – a culture of “publish quality work and succeed!”. Support a culture of “publish quality work and succeed!” I believe that the culture of “publish or perish” has opened a Pandora’s box of predatory journals, low-quality articles, and incremental research just to meet the “quantity” targets for publications. With such a high fraction of uncited work, one may wonder whether this work has been read at all and whether it will influence the particular field of study. This percentage can get even higher for disciplines like literature and literary theory (>70% uncited), visual arts and performing arts (70%) or history (>50%). However, the part of uncited work in areas like automotive, aerospace and ocean engineering reached more than 40%. Some papers may not be cited even 5 years after of publication!įor example, in disciplines related to chemical engineering, chemistry, neuroscience or biology were uncited only 3-7% of articles published in 2012 were uncited after 5 years according to research undertaken by THE. Remember that publishing your work is important – after all your track record is very likely to be considered when you apply for research and academic positions, or later when you apply for research grants.īut did you know that some of the articles do not get cited at all? There are, of course, disciplines where you are almost certain that you will be cited. If you have experienced “publish or perish” pressure, I would like to hear from you. For example, I have not experienced it the university I am currently associated with. Yet, remember that “publish or perish” is not necessarily a part of the academic culture at all universities or research organisations. My discussions with academics and researchers at other universities worldwide indicated that the “publish or perish” aphorism is annoyingly believed to be an unspoken truth of the academic life. I believe that was the time I decided to do my PhD thesis by publication, as I realised that to succeed in academia, I need to publish my work (although I was not pushed to do so just to be clear!).ĭid this mean working against the clock to publish as much as possible? Yes… but it was my decision and ambition at that time that was driving this.ĭid this mean that I missed out on other important activities, such as networking or making new friends? Yes… but at that time this seemed to be a good approach.ĭid this mean that I got really anxious about and did not see the point in my work? Yes… but I brought this on myself.ĭoes this mean I would go the same path again? Definitely no! Issues with publish or perish culture I learnt that the aphorism “publish or perish” refers to the pressure that is put on researchers and academics by their institutions to publish their work in order to be seen as successful and progress through their academic careers. I remember like it was yesterday that I looked it up in the Oxford Dictionary. Blueprint for successful academic careerĭefinition of publish or perish in the academic context.Support a culture of “publish quality work and succeed!”.Definition of publish or perish in the academic context.
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