Academia's never-ending selection for productivity
Academia's never-ending selection for productivity
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DOI：
10.1007/s11192-015-1534-5
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发表时间：
2015-04-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Angelier, Frederic
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Brischoux, Francois;Angelier, Frederic
在过去的十年中，关于“学术界对数量的痴迷”（Lawrence 2007; Fischer et al. 2012 a）和随后的影响因子竞赛（科学家玩的一种不健康的游戏）的辩论已经出现（Cherubini 2008; Brischoux和Cook 2009）。尽管被科学界普遍鄙视（但见Loyola等人，2012年），“出版或毁灭”的教条和生产力指数的使用（如期刊的影响因子，发表文章的数量）来评估研究人员的产出似乎仍然存在，这是由该主题相对频繁的出版物所表明的。（例如，Lawrence 2007; McDade et al. 2011; Fischer et al. 2012 a; Kaushal and Jeschke 2014; Jacobs 2014另见Carpenter et al. 2014）。然而，这种偏离对科学研究政治的影响的实际量化仍然很复杂。例如，这种对数量的痴迷预计会在本已不确定的就业市场上产生更激烈的职位竞争（Sanchis-Gomar 2014），更重要的是，会推迟招聘年轻科学家，从而导致一定程度的不稳定性。由于这种更激烈的竞争，年轻的博士可能不得不积累不稳定的研究职位之前，在一个稳定的研究和/或教学职位招聘。然而，随着时间的推移量化这些现象和趋势是具有挑战性的。事实上，特定学科的研究人员招聘取决于研究机构（如大学）的需求，而这些需求可能会随着时间的推移而发生巨大变化，因此无法对招聘人员的学术概况进行强有力的时间序列评估。为了量化年轻研究人员的学术概况随着时间的推移而发生的变化，我们利用了法国CNRS（法国最大的政府研究机构和欧洲最大的基础科学机构，“国家科学研究中心”）使用的高度可重复的招聘过程。事实上，每年，CNRS都会通过类似的竞争性考试为41个研究学科（“部门”）中的每一个招聘几名年轻研究人员。
Over the last decade, a debate has been emerging on ‘‘Academia’s obsession with quantity’’(Lawrence 2007; Fischer et al. 2012a) and the subsequent Impact Factor Race, an unhealthy game played by scientists (Cherubini 2008; Brischoux and Cook 2009). Despite being widely despised by the scientific community (but see Loyola et al. 2012), the ‘‘publish or perish’’dogma and the use of productivity indices (eg, journal’s impact factor, number of published articles) to assess a researcher’s output seem to hold on, as suggested by the relatively frequent publications on this subject (eg, Lawrence 2007; McDade et al. 2011; Fischer et al. 2012a; Kaushal and Jeschke 2014; Jacobs 2014 see also Carpenter et al. 2014).Yet, actual quantification of the effects of this deviance on the politics of scientific research remains complicated. For instance, this obsession with quantity is expected to produce tougher competition for positions in an already uncertain job market (Sanchis-Gomar 2014) and, more importantly, to delay the recruitment of young scientists leading therefore to some extent of precarity. Because of this tougher competition, young PhDs may have to accumulate precarious research positions prior to recruitment at a stable research and/or teaching position. However, quantifying these phenomena and trends over time is challenging. Indeed, researchers’ recruitment in specific disciplines depends on the needs of a research institution (eg, a university) that may dramatically vary through time, thereby precluding robust assessment of time series of the academic profiles of recruits. As an attempt to quantify the evolution of the academic profiles of young researchers hired over time, we took advantage of the highly repeatable recruitment process used by the French CNRS (‘‘National Centre for Scientific Research’’, the largest governmental research organization in France and the largest fundamental science agency in Europe). Indeed, each year and for each of the 41 research disciplines (‘‘sections’’), the CNRS recruits several young researchers through a similar competitive exam. For instance, each