How do you think the academic publishing system could be improved to reduce harmful pressure while maintaining research quality?

To publish less, with more quality. In this specific context, less is more, and there is no doubt about this. 

Rewarding quality, not quantity

minimal payment

1) Expedite evaluation process 2) Reduce Publication costs and increase waiver in publication costs

There should be better review system. Most of the reviews been done now are mostly not by experts. 

Just dont consider them as a facor for career growth all over the world.

The completeness or quality of a publication has to be rated with respect to the numbers of publications produced. 

A beeter analysis of results quality than quantity (journal´s impacts, for instance).

Discouple academic perfomance from publication output and most certainly from funding for Universities

Better metrics for judging scientific impact 

If reviewers payed real attention to quality. In my case, I happened to cross with published papers I had rejected because of poor quality or results not supported by evidence. That was really surprising, but there they were!!! 

Focus on quality research 

Substantially increase funding in academia. Leaving researchers time to think, to reflect and delve deeper into a specific topic. 
For a very explanatory example, see the article below:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-boson-academic-system

Seeking quality instead of number of publication

Double blindness of the paper. 
Unreasonable and unjustifieble rejection of papers.

 

Institutions should evaluate researchers based on a broader set of criteria, including teaching, mentoring, public engagement, community service, and publication metrics.

Encourage a focus on the quality and impact of research rather than the sheer number of publications. This can be achieved by valuing high-impact publications and recognizing contributions to significant research projects.

Develop more flexible policies that recognize a variety of publication types, including open-access journals, conference proceedings, and interdisciplinary research outputs

 

 I believe the academic publishing system could be improved in several ways to reduce harmful pressure while maintaining research quality, such as  enhanced peer review process, support for open acess, balanced evaluation criteria, better funding mechanisms and cultivating a positive research culture. 

There should be no time constraint and quality research work should be appreciated even if it is at unpublished state.

by evaluating only high quality papers intead of volume of reserch

I think that papers should include original, relevant results that do not necessarily include molecular or cellular mechanisms (unless these are necessary to support the main result). The problem is that, usually, good quality journals ask for a lot of mechanisms. In cancer research, the studies of molecular and cellular mechanisms take a lot of time. This may be due to the fact that cancer cells are totally different (each might contain a unique set of mutations) although they belong to the same cancer subtype and, therefore, the molecular mechanisms found in one cell line may not be reproduced in other cell line of the same subtype of tumor. That's why in cancer research is hard to obtain reproducible results when using different cell lines or when passing from in vitro to in vivo models.
in brief, journals should accept manuscripts describing an original result without the need to ask for many mechanisms.

Research publications should be evaluated on quality and novelty, not on quantity.

i think research quality would improve by reducing the focus/pressure on publishing articles. I think the whole system would need to change for that, maybe continue without journals in their current form
-everything open access, including publication of reviewer comments and revisions
-online publication, outside of traditional journals/publishers, e.g. ResearchHub or other alternatives
-'living documents' - e.g. updates of systematic reviews rather than publishing updates as new articles.
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I think that the research must be saved by harmful pressures, so to mantain high scientific quality. 

As a scientist living in Iran sanctioned by some international publishing companies I have been deprived publishing my manuscript after acceptance letter. Such limitation impose pressure on quality of manuscripts. 

More rigorous vetting of publications 

I would offer to create a "Research Quality Index" (RQI) that combines various indicators of research quality and impact, such as peer review scores, reproducibility, data transparency, practical impact, and collaborative efforts. This index would be used in evaluations for funding, tenure, and promotions, replacing the traditional emphasis on publication count.

Judging publications by quality instead of quantity. Journal impact factors as measuring sticks for quality have created pressures to publish in a selected number of journals.

Yes it needs to be improved with better research quality. 

I do not know

Staff who is performing research should be provided with dedicated time for research 

Improving the academic publishing system to reduce harmful pressure while maintaining research quality can be achieved through several strategies:

1. **Decentralizing Impact Metrics**: Moving away from an over-reliance on impact factors and citation counts towards a more holistic evaluation of research contributions, including the societal impact, data sharing, and methodological rigor.

2. **Increasing Transparency and Openness**: Promoting open access publishing and open peer review processes can enhance transparency and accountability. This includes making data and methods available for replication and scrutiny.

3. **Providing Better Support for Researchers**: Institutions and funding bodies can provide better support for researchers in terms of mental health resources, fairer workload distribution, and recognition of a wider range of academic activities beyond publications.

4. **Encouraging Collaborative Research**: Fostering a collaborative rather than competitive research environment can reduce individual pressures. This includes promoting multi-author papers and interdisciplinary research projects.

5. **Revamping Peer Review**: Improving the peer review process to make it more constructive and less adversarial. This can involve training reviewers, recognizing and rewarding high-quality reviews, and adopting double-blind or even triple-blind review processes.

To reduce the requirement of publishing at institutional level and to reduce the time required for peer reviewing and publishing decisions

Less research, better quality

Take off the mushrooming publishing houses and never connect the number of publications as the criteria for promotions

very much

Focus on continuous long term improvement and actual societal benefits. Efforts should be evaluated, improvised and measured, instead of outcome in form of papers.

When the researcher determines his purpose and target correctly, he/she will achieve success

no idea

To publish quality research within the academic arena, I recommend increased provision of finance to research while, at the same time, institutions giving more attention and significant incentive for researchers who publish quality papers.

Publishers should publish papers and develop project proposals linked to the country's needs. In this way everyone will be involved in various aspect  of the research and this will reduce pressure on publishing because everyone is involved in publishing.

Reduce premium on publication and consider other efforts and tangible contributions to teaching and learning as well as technical and commercial services. 

Reduce the percentage of papers while evaluating a candidate

Patience is a virtue. One sometimes needs the time and space to produce a deeper more profound study. The plethora of new writing technologies might make one assume, that the process can be speeded up, but if this comes at the cost of poorer hastened research the long-term outcome will be a nett loss. It is splendid that research is ever-more accessible these days and publishing has mushroomed, but sense of achievement shouldn't be just a numbers game. The publishing system is varied and full of choice. There is such a thing as vanity press as well as excellent societal forums that reflect the carefully acquired opinions of the scientific community. There is a movement to adjust the open access fees system, negotiating with institutions.  Everyone has a shared responsibility with regard to the diligence with which a submitted manuscript is written and reviewed, the technologies for bringing the information in a clear manner to all stakeholders have never been better.

Have more resources for investigations

Base rewards on quality rather than quantity of publications, using impact factor or other metrics as indicators of quality.

I think journals have to keep to their standards and follow the recommendations they receive for free from their reviewers. Good knowledge and connections between journals and the scientific community would lead to the dissapearance of low rated predatory journals. This will communicate a clear message to the community, I think.
At the minute noone wants to review manuscripts, as you get tons of substandard manuscripts and noone listens to the rejections. 

Yes. It put pressure on everybody. The PI has it and transfers it to the lab members.

1. Journals should limit accepting papers whose results are not yet ready. The tendency of journals accepting such papers drive researchers from wanting to publish
2. As much institution seek to show that they are doing something on monthly basis, it may be important to focus on quality and impact than numbers.

No pressure should be created to always publish in a high-impact factor journal.

From my perspective, moving from quantitative indicators to qualitative indicators may help reduce the pressure related to publishing.

You can not use citation metrics both for assessment of research quality and providing research grants. It is one or the other. At universities researchers are used to cite mutual to improve the score. 

Peer reviews of manuscripts should use 3 improvements.  First the reviewers should be blind to authors names.  Second reviewers should be blind to authors' institutions.  Third editors should reject poorly described and executed study protocols (e.g. test article concentrations far greater than human exposures; test substance administration by route(s) not relevant to human exposures and health risk assessment) outright and not bother the editorial board members with junk.

free

It would allow to develop experiments to confirm new findings in a better way

Preprints, judge peoples career based on the quality of the work and not on journal IF,

Ease of maintaining access to data (either via data use agreements with individuals rather than only with institutions) may help.

remove wos etc requirements

We need leaders in academia who value quality; eliminate Impact Factors that drive people to chase prestigious journals at any cost; predatory journals and journals that chase Impact Factors are also a huge problem -- they encourage low quality submission to boost volume of publications.  Give reviewers of paper more incentives to do a better job, like put less pressure on them to review rapidly, and reward high quality reviews.

Find a proper way to reward quality in what is published, rather than quantity which, of course, is an easier metric to follow.

The modern system of competition for mega-grants, and significant reduction of the number of small ones   looks the greatest obstacle for me.

Availability of academic funds 

Until academic positions will be evaluted through the number of published papers, and not only by their quality, no improvement could be observed, as far as I can see. A more elaborate approach to academic career, considering not only article publishing, but also congress participation, clinical trials participation, scientific protocols writing, and so on, should be considered to avoid excessive publishing pressure.

The academic publishing system should be consider relevant than quantitatif research. 

By clearly setting work-nonwork boundaries and work-life balance for researchers;
By minimizing and eliminating non-paid tasks and work, or simply pay for every task (eg. Peer review, giving consultations to colleagues, etc.);
By making institutional accreditation process easier which is the main source of stress for the researchers and mainly it is the purpose of publishing, not the research itself and mostly not the personal and professional growth of the researcher.

One should be considered for the quality of their research work, rather than numbers. Moreover, it should also be considered how many primary data publications author has done. 

It could be a good idea to have teams of scientist, i mean a group to investigate but changing principal authors sistematically.

The publishing author should receive adequate training on scientific writing and publishing. The research data should be made available.

More premiality without pressure

 Shift the focus from the number of publications to the quality and impact of research. 

By also allowing individual results to be published.

1. Reducing the time between submitting the research and the editor-in-chief’s decision
2. Taking into account the publishing fee, especially with developing countries with low economies

yes