This story starts with a graph.
The black line represents the total number of new scientific articles published per year around the world. Not total articles – total new articles. In 2022, more than 2.8 million new scientific papers were published – almost 900,000 more than in 2016.
This is called “publishing inflation” and it is now higher than Australia’s actual inflation rate. “The consequence is, we are overwhelmed with information,” says Professor Ben Mol, head of the Evidence-based Women’s Health Care Research Group at Monash University.
“We can’t cope with the total amount of information, and we don’t know what the quality of that information is.” The graph comes from a paper – not yet peer reviewed – led by Dr Mark Hanson from the University of Exeter, uploaded to arXiv late last year.
We are publishing more scientific papers now than ever. The industry – for it is an industry – shows no signs of slowing down.
As science has turned into a business, churning out papers and minting PhDs, it has strained the structures that are meant to ensure quality to breaking point. At the same time, there is evidence science is delivering less actual innovation than ever before. I suspect the incentives baked into the system have started dragging it off the rails.
Scientists want to publish more papers to advance their careers and win government funding. Publishers want to publish more because that’s how they make money. Governments and universities want to fund more........