Some remarks about the effects that bibliometric indicators have on science advancement and communication.
Early-stage researchers are often pushed to publish papers in international scientific journals so that their individual bibliometric indicators increase.
Such indicators are often considered crucial aspects of a career in the academic and research sectors. They are used by panels for the assessment of candidates for the enrollment of researchers and professors at universities and research centers. Some PhD schools even require that a student publishes a minimum number of papers in international scientific journals before admitting him or her to the final exam.
Bibliometric indicators are often examined also to evaluate the scientific curriculum of the PI of a research proposal or a funding application.
Therefore, the number of submissions to international journals is increasing. Not only that. The number of scientific international journals is increasing. And many publishers offer open-access options to publish papers in their journals, a strategy that is expected to support “open science”.
In my experience and opinion, this trend creates big problems for the advancement of science at the global level.
The number of published papers is so big that it is becoming very difficult to complete bibliographic research and find the most relevant publications on a given scientific argument.
It is more and more difficult to find good reviewers for submitted manuscripts. High-quality researchers are overwhelmed by research, teaching, and bureaucratic duties, so they can rarely serve as reviewers. Not to mention poor ethics of some reviewers: self-promotion through the request of citation of papers published by the reviewers, even if those papers have very limited relevance with the topic of the manuscript under revision; an excessively favorable attitude toward manuscripts written by authors who are considered to be leaders in their research field or who had past working relationships with the reviewers; an excessively negative attitude against authors who do not belong to the dominant circles or with whom the reviewer had dissenting opinions; etc.
As a consequence, editors are sometimes obliged to rely on reviewers with limited experience or without enough time to carefully read and comment on a manuscript. As an effect, it is not uncommon to find imprecise statements, or even mistakes, in published papers.
Notation, figures, use of measurement units, and many other formal aspects are often poorly considered and this dramatically reduces the quality of published papers.
The pressure to publish induces many researchers to submit manuscripts that are nothing more than technical reports of case studies. In the last few years, I have been asked to review manuscripts that described works where standard techniques and methods were applied to specific case studies, without any innovative content. Sad to say, it is also quite common to review manuscripts that show that the authors have good skills in the use of technology and computer programs, but do have not a deep knowledge of the basics of the disciplines (physics and mathematics, in my research field) behind the applied methods and tools.
When a paper with innovative results is published, the authors often submit a series of papers, which basically present modest or limited improvements with respect to the original work.
Moreover, for research projects that require huge infrastructures, it is quite common that the results are published in papers with a long list of authors. The contribution of each author is rarely clear. Furthermore, bibliometric indicators increase in a much easier way for big research teams than for individual researchers. In other words, there is often a bias in bibliometric indicators in favor of researchers working in large teams.
What you will read in future posts.
In the next series of posts on this blog on SciProfiles, I intend to provide my view on these aspects. I will try to make a positive contribution through some personal opinions and suggestions for good-quality publications.
I am not an expert in the history and philosophy of science. I am not an expert in the design of R&D projects. I am not an expert in scientific communication. I am a professor, who has been working at a University since 1991.
So, in these posts, you will not find scientific results on the social impact of science. Nor on the development and strategies of the scientific publishing industry. You will not find a deep analysis of the best way to communicate scientific results.
In these posts, you will read some opinions of mine about these topics. As such, they will be very debatable and open to discussion and criticism.
In these posts, I will discuss best practices (or, at least, what I consider to be best practices) to write and review scientific manuscripts.
My research field is geophysics. My research is focused on hydrology, mostly groundwater hydrology, with specific attention to the dynamics of fluids in porous media, mathematical modeling, and inverse problems. Of course, my academic background and my knowledge will mean that the opinions that I will share in these posts are biased. I hope that such opinions will nevertheless be useful for young researchers who are starting their scientific careers.
Stay tuned!
Disclaimer
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position or opinions of MDPI or its employees. MDPI takes no responsibility for the content or ideas expressed in this article.
Last updated on: July 25, 2026