How to stop salami science: promotion of healthy trends in publishing behavior

ABSTRACT

The career of scientists often depends on the number of their published works. This fact leads to the overproduction of low-quality papers burying the important articles and making the knowledge less accessible. One of the methods to counteract these negative aspects might lie in the promotion of healthy trends in publishing behavior. In the present work, the theoretical analysis of a new bibliometric measure is presented, and its potential impact on the publishing strategies is carefully discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Article inflation
• asymmetry of the distribution curve
• h-index
• herfindahl index
• salami science

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Alexis-Michel Mugabushaka and Giulia Gabrielli from the European Commission, European Research Council Executive Agency, for careful reading of the manuscript and helpful discussion.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this paper are the author’s. They do not necessarily reflect the views or official positions of the European Commission, the European Research Council Executive Agency or the ERC Scientific Council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.