About the Project

The recent shift in evaluation systems to more diverse criteria has increased the visibility of the spectrum of quality of research produced, incurring a moral panic about the effects of “predatory” publishing practices on the science system. However, this concern currently lacks empirical substantiation and ignores the complex geopolitical relations, researchers’ motivations, and centre-periphery narrative inherent in this debate.

Thus, the project uses a mixed-methods approach to answer three questions: How have publishing practices in different national settings emerged? How do academic communities define and react to questionable publishing practices? And how do evaluation systems influence (questionable) publishing practices?

The aim is to elucidate the relationship between evaluation systems and (questionable) publishing practices, accounting for the contextual processes of labelling practices as questionable. The approach combines systematic review, quantitative and bibliometric methods to identify (changing) publishing practices associated with evaluation systems, together with qualitative methods to understand the motivations for these practices in six national systems: Germany, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, India, and Brazil. Comparing multiple case studies lends validity to casual inferences and the results of this project would have implications for the design of evaluation systems.

The four-year project (September 2024 - August 2028) is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.

You can get in touch with us via stephen[at]dzhw.eu.