The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on perceived publication pressure among academic researchers in Canada

Abstract

The phenomenon of “publish-or-perish” in academia, spurred on by limited funding and academic positions, has led to increased competition and pressure on academics to publish. Publication pressure has been linked with multiple negative outcomes, including increased academic misconduct and researcher burnout. COVID-19 has disrupted research worldwide, leading to lost research time and increased anxiety amongst researchers. The objective of this study was to examine how COVID-19 has impacted perceived publication pressure amongst academic researchers in Canada. We used the revised Publication Pressure Questionnaire, in addition to Likert-type questions to discern respondents’ beliefs and concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on academic publishing. We found that publication pressure increased across academic researchers in Canada following the pandemic, with respondents reporting increased stress, increased pessimism, and decreased access to support related to publishing. Doctoral students reported the highest levels of stress and pessimism, while principal investigators had the most access to publication support. There were no significant differences in publication pressure reported between different research disciplines. Women and non-binary or genderfluid respondents reported higher stress and pessimism than men. We also identified differences in perceived publication pressure based on respondents’ publication frequency and other demographic factors, including disability and citizenship status. Overall, we document a snapshot of perceived publication pressure in Canada across researchers of different academic career stages and disciplines. This information can be used to guide the creation of researcher supports, as well as identify groups of researchers who may benefit from targeted resources.

Promotional language in radiology publications: increasing use of “excellent”, “favorable”, “promising”, “robust”, and “unique”

“…This suggests that researchers in the field of radiology are increasingly promoting their research findings. Increasing use of promotional language is thought to be a reaction of researchers to increasing publication pressure and publication bias favoring positive results over negative results [2][3][4][5][6]. Note that previous research has shown that radiology researchers also perceive publication bias as a widespread phenomenon [9].…”

“…However, journals, and particularly those with a high impact factor (IF), only accept a minority of submitted manuscripts. Not surprisingly, publication pressure on academic researchers is generally regarded as high [2][3][4].…”

“…Too much publication pressure may decrease the quality of the science when the aim of researchers shifts to producing "publishable" results at the expense of performing high-quality and meaningful research [2][3][4]. This is further aggravated by the fact that studies with positive results are more likely to be published and to be published faster than those with negative results [5,6].…”

Perceived research productivity of women in higher education: An investigation of the impact of COVID‐19

“…We could argue that regardless of having children or any care responsibilities, intense pressure would affect academics and the quality of their work adversely. Indeed, the pressure to publish more (and faster) is found to have the potential to decrease scientific quality (Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany & Oxford Economics, 2021), has been linked to burnout and this pressure was intensified during the pandemic (Suart et al., 2022). In this study, alongside a certain level of increase in perceived pressure regarding research productivity, 35.4% of the respondents reported a level of burnout scored 80 and above (out of 100, which is the highest score for agreeing with the statement ‘I experienced burnout during the pandemic’).…”

Unveiling the Emotional Turmoil: How Covid-19 impacted researchers and the pursuit of emotional well-being in academia

“…While studies have already shown that women have higher levels of stress and anxiety (Hankin, et al, 2007;Savitsky, et al, 2020;Suart, Neuman & Truant, 2022) and react differently to them than men (Bekker & van Mens-Verhulst, 2007), our study points out that the emotional effects of first confinement of covid-29 were different in men and women and this was aggravated when they were in the subgroup of younger career researchers, consistently with some recent studies (Suart, Neuman & Truant, 2022). Uncertainty related to the sudden and unexpected transition to distance learning and concern about the future, including academic career assessment procedures (Sahu, 2020), could have played a significant role, with adverse effects on the psychological health of this subgroup of younger individuals.…”