{"id":844,"date":"2014-09-08T20:50:57","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T20:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/?p=844"},"modified":"2015-12-04T20:52:23","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T20:52:23","slug":"how-to-encourage-researchers-to-publish-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/how-to-encourage-researchers-to-publish-more\/","title":{"rendered":"How to encourage researchers to publish more"},"content":{"rendered":"
Recently, I had a conversation about incentives for researchers to publish. You\u2019d be forgiven for finding this challenge\u00a0rather odd but, in fact, it is something that several think tanks have to deal with.<\/p>\n
First of all, many researchers, often some of the most in-demand experts, spend most of their time working as research consultants. This leaves little time for them to focus on more academic or policy publications. One project follows the other with little time in between (see here\u00a0for some ideas on how to make time<\/a>). Second, many think tanks are still staffed with and led by an \u2018older\u2019 generation of researchers who already enjoy an excellent reputation and are naturally less concerned about publishing than that may be about other things: teaching, public engagements, etc. In some cases, too, there is not so much of a sense of urgency in what researchers do. They are not yet challenged by younger generations or other sectors in the policy space. Publication (or research production, more generally) efforts are reserved, maybe, for books, but certainly not for shorter papers or briefs. Finally, especially academic publishing, and particularly publication in influential journals (something many think tanks would like to see more of), can be highly time-consuming. And this is something that few researchers have time for. And who could blame them?\u00a0the odds are staked against them<\/a>. This is worth spelling out:<\/p>\n Considering the 20-year span (1985 to 2004) and the top-five economics journals together the published articles comprised:<\/p>\n 39 papers on India,<\/p>\n 65 papers on China,<\/p>\n 34 papers on all of Sub-Saharan Africa; and<\/p>\n 2,383 papers on the US.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Of course, underlying many\u00a0of these is the issue of funding. Project funding keeps many researchers and think tanks in a hand-to-mouth state that prevents them from making the investments they need to change this state of affairs. Sometimes, however, the change is more psychological than anything else; the funds are there, but researchers and their organisations find it hard to change the way they work.<\/p>\n The choice of actions will depend on the think tanks\u2019 own particular circumstances. But some of the following ideas might help to put together the most appropriate plan:<\/p>\n There are probably many more. In the end, what one is really looking for is a change in the organisational culture. A realisation that, for whatever reason, researchers in a think tank (or in a research centre in a university) cannot behave as tenured professors -certainly not in developing countries where lavish public funding for that kind of (necessary) scholarship simply does not exit). Think tanks must be dynamic and productive organisations. Researchers much compete (in good nature) between them and between their peers in other think tanks.<\/p>\n Which take sus back to the bottom line: who will pay for all this? And, will it work?<\/p>\n Answering the second question first, I\u2019d be cautious to promise immediate results. Obviously the best way to publish more right away would be to make sure that\u00a0current research staff drop whatever they are doing (or not doing) and start to publish more. This is not going to happen, clearly. So new things need to be attempted. All the suggestions above will take some time, some more than others, but they should lead to a new and sustainable publication (and production, more generally) capacity.<\/p>\n There is a clear underlying message in all these recommendations: you need a new mindset, either from within or outside the organisation .<\/p>\n In terms of the costs, the recommendations are not as expensive as they sound. But they may not be popular, but they are certainly not expensive:<\/p>\n These are all manageable investments for think tanks. Publication (in various forms) is crucial for a think tank.\u00a0Without them they are unlikely to raise their visibility and that of their ideas. Without them, they will find it hard to attract new generations of researchers and other leaders. They will struggle to advance their ideas, too, if they do not put them down on paper for others to engage with them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In this post Enrique Mendizabal presents several ideas to increase think tanks’ publications numbers. Using associates, introducing publication targets, and investing in new skills and systems, think tanks can avoid falling into a publications’ draught. Once in one, it will be harder to turn things around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What could a think tank do to address a publications recession\u00a0?<\/h2>\n
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The bottom line<\/h2>\n
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