The impact of researchers’ perceived pressure on their publication strategies

David Johann; Jörg Neufeld; Kathrin Thomas; Justus Rathmann; Heiko Rauhut

doi:10.1093/reseval/rvae011

The impact of researchers’ perceived pressure on their publication strategies

David Johann^* (Corresponding Author), Jörg Neufeld, Kathrin Thomas, Justus Rathmann, Heiko Rauhut

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This article investigates researchers’ publication strategies and how their perceived pressure to publish and to obtain external funding are related to these strategies. The analyses rely on data from the Zurich Survey of Academics (ZSoA), an online survey representative of academics working at higher education institutions in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The results suggest that academics pursue both instrumental and normative publication strategies. The main finding is that academics who perceive high pressure to publish tend to employ instrumental publication strategies rather than normative ones: they are more likely to focus on the journal's reputation and the speed of publication when selecting an outlet for peer review. Publishing results in open-access outlets or in native languages other than English is less important for those under pressure. However, the extent to which researchers’ perceived pressure affects publication strategies also depends on other factors, such as the discrepancy between the time available for research and the time actually desired for research.
Keywords: Higher education research, academic outputs, research dissemination, motivations, survey

Original language	English
Article number	rvae011
Number of pages	16
Journal	Research Evaluation
Early online date	25 Mar 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvae011
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 25 Mar 2024

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgements
The authors of this paper acknowledge linguistic advice and copyediting/proofreading of the text by Brian Cooper. They thank Emma Conforti for research assistance/literature research. Moreover, they would like to thank Bernhard Kittel, University of Vienna, as well as their colleagues at the University of Zurich, including Alexander Ehlert, Debora Frei, Julia Jerke, Nico Keiser, Adrien-Paul Lambillon, Vincent Oberhauser, Isabel Raabe, and Antonia Velicu, for conceptual discussions, support, and helpful suggestions for improvement. Special thanks to Julia Jerke and Antonia Velicu for their contribution to the survey design, data collection, and data preparation. Finally, the authors of this paper would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their fruitful comments and suggestions that helped to improve this article.
Funding
This research is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) under the SNSF Starting Grant “CONCISE” (BSSGI0_155981).

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title = "The impact of researchers{\textquoteright} perceived pressure on their publication strategies",

abstract = "This article investigates researchers{\textquoteright} publication strategies and how their perceived pressure to publish and to obtain external funding are related to these strategies. The analyses rely on data from the Zurich Survey of Academics (ZSoA), an online survey representative of academics working at higher education institutions in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The results suggest that academics pursue both instrumental and normative publication strategies. The main finding is that academics who perceive high pressure to publish tend to employ instrumental publication strategies rather than normative ones: they are more likely to focus on the journal's reputation and the speed of publication when selecting an outlet for peer review. Publishing results in open-access outlets or in native languages other than English is less important for those under pressure. However, the extent to which researchers{\textquoteright} perceived pressure affects publication strategies also depends on other factors, such as the discrepancy between the time available for research and the time actually desired for research.Keywords: Higher education research, academic outputs, research dissemination, motivations, survey",

author = "David Johann and J{\"o}rg Neufeld and Kathrin Thomas and Justus Rathmann and Heiko Rauhut",

note = "Acknowledgements The authors of this paper acknowledge linguistic advice and copyediting/proofreading of the text by Brian Cooper. They thank Emma Conforti for research assistance/literature research. Moreover, they would like to thank Bernhard Kittel, University of Vienna, as well as their colleagues at the University of Zurich, including Alexander Ehlert, Debora Frei, Julia Jerke, Nico Keiser, Adrien-Paul Lambillon, Vincent Oberhauser, Isabel Raabe, and Antonia Velicu, for conceptual discussions, support, and helpful suggestions for improvement. Special thanks to Julia Jerke and Antonia Velicu for their contribution to the survey design, data collection, and data preparation. Finally, the authors of this paper would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their fruitful comments and suggestions that helped to improve this article. Funding This research is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) under the SNSF Starting Grant “CONCISE” (BSSGI0_155981). ",

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N1 - Acknowledgements The authors of this paper acknowledge linguistic advice and copyediting/proofreading of the text by Brian Cooper. They thank Emma Conforti for research assistance/literature research. Moreover, they would like to thank Bernhard Kittel, University of Vienna, as well as their colleagues at the University of Zurich, including Alexander Ehlert, Debora Frei, Julia Jerke, Nico Keiser, Adrien-Paul Lambillon, Vincent Oberhauser, Isabel Raabe, and Antonia Velicu, for conceptual discussions, support, and helpful suggestions for improvement. Special thanks to Julia Jerke and Antonia Velicu for their contribution to the survey design, data collection, and data preparation. Finally, the authors of this paper would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their fruitful comments and suggestions that helped to improve this article. Funding This research is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) under the SNSF Starting Grant “CONCISE” (BSSGI0_155981).

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AB - This article investigates researchers’ publication strategies and how their perceived pressure to publish and to obtain external funding are related to these strategies. The analyses rely on data from the Zurich Survey of Academics (ZSoA), an online survey representative of academics working at higher education institutions in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The results suggest that academics pursue both instrumental and normative publication strategies. The main finding is that academics who perceive high pressure to publish tend to employ instrumental publication strategies rather than normative ones: they are more likely to focus on the journal's reputation and the speed of publication when selecting an outlet for peer review. Publishing results in open-access outlets or in native languages other than English is less important for those under pressure. However, the extent to which researchers’ perceived pressure affects publication strategies also depends on other factors, such as the discrepancy between the time available for research and the time actually desired for research.Keywords: Higher education research, academic outputs, research dissemination, motivations, survey

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The impact of researchers’ perceived pressure on their publication strategies

Abstract

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