Can runaway feedback help us understand the crisis of confidence in the academy?
Image generated by Amy Mowle using DALL-E
As we begin another academic year in Australia, there is little doubt that the University sector is in crisis. A recent report by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) found that ‘trust’ in Australian universities continues to erode amid ‘poor workforce planning’, staff loss and ‘highly paid executives’, with the average Australian Vice Chancellor earning twice that of the Prime Minister1. However, the growing mistrust of academic institutions is only part of the picture.
In 2024, major academic publisher Wiley made the decision to close down 19 scientific journals, following the retraction of over 11,000 bogus papers2. This comes after the same publisher made the dramatic decision to ‘pause’ publications under its recently acquired Hindawi imprint, comprising some 250 journals3. At the heart of this catastrophic blow to science are so-called paper mills – businesses with the sole purpose of mass-producing and publishing fabricated manuscripts that resemble genuine research to academics willing to pay the right price for authorship. Some estimates suggest that paper mills are responsible for upward of 400,000 research articles published over the last two decades4.
Rather than a simple cause-and-effect issue, this problem can be traced back to a complex web of underlying causes which have evolved over decades, creating fertile ground for the flourishing of this predatory industry. From a systems perspective, then, paper mills and the like can be seen as emergent properties of academia failing to realise its stated goals to advance knowledge and foster innovation for public good. These businesses can be seen as but one symptom of a ‘fantastically complex pattern’ of reinforcing feedback loops – ‘virtuous or vicious circle[s] that can cause healthy growth or runaway destruction’5. In other words, paper mills are symptomatic of runaway feedback in the academy, where multiple reinforcing feedback loops have led to exponential and uncontrolled changes in the system’s behaviour.
Perhaps the most obvious contributor to this runaway feedback loop is the ‘publish or perish’ mentality that has come to define academic life. While this is not a new phenomenon by any means (the phrase is widely attributed to Logan Wilson, who used it in his 1942 book The Academic Man6), a range of diverse yet interrelated factors have ensured the extravagant amplification of what Kiai describes as a ‘culture of publication worship’ which, at its worst, tends to incentivise substandard scientific practice7.
This ‘culture’ is embedded within the institution through the domination of research assessment practices by metrics like the H-index, citation numbers, publication in prestigious journals, track records in grant funding, and so on. Academic career prospects, promotions, tenure, and other crucial opportunities for researchers are tied to the often ‘barely attainable performance standards’ embodied by these metrics8. Ultimately, this presents as a perverse motivation for researchers to chase citations by publishing ever-greater quantities of research, undermining the pursuit of excellence or the production of quality, novel, or groundbreaking work9. The exponential increase in the number of PhDs being awarded, and the relative stagnation (or reduction) of academic jobs further amplifies the competition in an already cut-throat industry10. The need to stand out from one’s peers with an impressive track record acts as yet another inducement to publish, regardless of the quality or scholarly contribution of the work.
Importantly, all of this is occurring in an increasingly corporatised university setting. Speaking to the Intelligencer, Oransky suggests that ‘the metrics used to measure research feed a business model – a ravenous sort of insatiable business model’2. The widespread adoption of neoliberal New Public Management (NPM) approaches in Australian universities has, among other things, resulted in in the reduction of ‘the autonomy of academics and professional staff to exercise their judgement and expertise, while concentrating power in a largely unaccountable and increasingly authoritarian clique of senior managers and university executives’8. These approaches, which place disproportionate focus on the financial performance of higher education providers, have been a key driver in shifting the focus of Australian universities away from scholarly excellence in research, innovation, and teaching, and towards meeting quantifiable quasi-market measures of performance and success8.
While the crucial mechanism of peer-review could contribute to balancing out the ‘publish or perish’ reinforcing feedback loop, with diminished administrative support and skyrocketing workloads, ‘It becomes hard to justify spending time and energy reviewing when researchers are already overwhelmed’11. Adding to the issue, the number of articles submitted to for publication in academic journals continues to grow exponentially (1.92 million articles were published in 2016, and this skyrocketed to 2.82 million in 202212). This rate of publication far exceeds the number of scientists willing and able to vet this research via peer-review, placing tremendous strain on the publishing system. Of course, producing quality peer-reviews is not incentivised or rewarded in the same ways as citations, with academics expected to provide their labour for free – an issue that featured in a recent anti-trust lawsuit brought against six of the largest for-profit academic publishers13.
A perfect storm of overworked researchers, increased competition, undervalued and unsupported academic service, and the fetishisation of metrics like citation counts and the H-index have contributed to creating these conditions. Yet perhaps this can amount to more than just a cautionary tale; it may also illuminate a way forward. By viewing things like paper mills and eroded trust as symptomatic of a system in overdrive, there is an opportunity to consider how we might begin to recalibrate our focus on genuine scholarship, meaningful collaboration, and service to the public good. Will we continue to feed the cycle of hyper-production demanded by neoliberal rationality, or will we choose to reorganise our institutions around integrity, curiosity, and a commitment to knowledge? As a new academic year begins, it is not only our careers, but the future of the academy itself that stands at this crossroads.
Dr Amy Mowle, Research Fellow
References
NTEU. Ending Bad Governance for Good [Internet]. National Tertiary Education Union; 2024. Available from: https://betterunis.nteu.au/
Dugan KT. Why Scientific Fraud Is Suddenly Everywhere [Internet]. Intelligencer. 2024 [cited 2024 Aug 21]. Available from: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/why-scientific-fraud-is-suddenly-everywhere.html
Besser L. Wiley’s ‘fake science’ scandal is just the latest chapter in a broader crisis of trust universities must address. ABC News [Internet]. 2024 May 20 [cited 2024 Aug 21]; Available from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-21/wiley-hindawi-articles-scandal-broader-crisis-trust-universities/103868662
Van Noorden R. How big is science’s fake-paper problem? Nature. 2023 Nov 16;623(7987):466–7.
Meadows DH. Thinking in Systems: A Primer. Wright D, editor. London, UK: Earthscan Publishing; 2009. 235 p.
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Kiai A. To protect credibility in science, banish “publish or perish”. Nature Human Behaviour. 2019;3:1017–8.
Guthrie J, Lucas A. How we got here: The transformation of Australian public universities into for-profit corporations. Social Alternatives. 2022;41(1):26–34.
Foley C. Research ranking would have ignored Finkel. That’s why it’s not fit for purpose [Internet]. The Sydney Morning Herald. 2023 [cited 2024 Nov 22]. Available from: https://archive.md/ypPuC
Hoang S, Ta B, Dang TTD, Khong H. Australia has way more PhD graduates than academic jobs. Here’s how to rethink doctoral degrees [Internet]. Victoria University, Australia. 2023 [cited 2024 Nov 22]. Available from: https://www.vu.edu.au/about-vu/news-events/news/australia-has-way-more-phd-graduates-than-academic-jobs-heres-how-to-rethink-doctoral-degrees
Tropini C, Finlay BB, Nichter M, Melby MK, Metcalf JL, Dominguez-Bello MG, et al. Time to rethink academic publishing: the peer reviewer crisis. Boothroyd JC, editor. mBio. 2023 Dec 19;14(6):e01091-23.
Hanson MA, Barreiro PG, Crosetto P, Brockington D. The strain on scientific publishing. Quantitative Science Studies. 2024 Nov 1;5(4):823–43.
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