Publish or Perish: The solution

The publish-or-perish process in Nigerian University system has been described in a previous post and the challenges with the process (here).   There is the need to re-examine the process to reward hard work, discourage mediocrity and improve the quality of research in our university system.  In this post, I describe my views on how the publish-or-perish process can be greatly enhanced for maximum impact.

(1)  All fingers must be equal:  Local journals must have the same value with international journal.  Preferences and special treatment of local journals under the guise of "developing local content"  has not actually developed any local journal.  Requiring a certain percentage of publication for promotion to be published locally encourages mediocrity, as local journals see this as a steady stream of income.  

(2)  Quality over quantity:  The work of identifying quality research has been done by indexing services.  I do not think there is a need to re-invent the wheel.  Institutions should identify quality based indexing services such as Scopus, Clarivate Analytics and others and adopt them.  Only researches indexed by the adopted services will be used for promotion.  This will remove the need for several in-house and international assessments. The number of required articles and years of experience  per level is clearly stated and maintained.

(3)  Streamline the process:  The process of promotion should not be complicated, at least the publication aspect.  Researchers will submit the usual form without printing hard copies of peer reviewed articles.  The Department validates all other components (teaching and community service) except publications.  The report is sent to a central University body who will also confirm that submitted publications are in the approved indexing services.  No reading and reporting on each published articles, no scoring, no multilevel interdepartmental meetings!

(4)  Cut the extra baggage:  By considering all journals to be equal and using global best standards of quality indexing, extra baggage in the publication assessment such as considering volume 40 and above,  rejecting journals from countries like Iran;  searching for countries of origin of journals; will be eliminated.  Publication assessment should not be a nightmare that consumes the researchers time, money, and energy.  The promotion exercise in itself should not be another research endeavour. 

The advantages of this concise and equitable process is numerous.  

(1)  reward hard work and reduce mediocrity

(2)  eliminate bias, prejudice in the promotion process

(3)  basis to demand for better funding

(4)  better representation in international rankings of institutions

(5)  save time, energy, and resources for researchers, assessors, and institution.

We cannot continue to demand quality education in line with global best practices and operate a researcher assessment policy that deviates from the global norm.  The assessment of a research should not be subject to the whims and caprices of administrators, prejudice of colleagues, and unnecessary bureaucratic processes. 

Publish or Perish: The Problems

In the first part of this series (here), the publication aspect of promotion process in Nigerian Universities was discussed.  The series continues with problems inherent in the publish or perish process as practiced in Nigeria.


Counter intuitive:  The process currently practiced defies logic.  Academic publishing depends on quality peer review.  A published paper is one that has been seen and approved by at least two of your peers, usually from around the world.  In Nigeria, this same published paper is subjected to pseudo-peer-review.  At each stage of the promotion, your published paper (already peer-reviewed) will be accessed by senior colleagues in the Department, Faculty and University (three different assessment levels!!).    This implies that a publication I had as a Graduate Assistant will be evaluated and scored about 6 different times after publication!  What forms the basis of the new scoring - quality, content or what?  Is the quality of the paper still being accessed after publication?

Breeds mediocrity:  Many academic institutions in Nigeria do not consider the most important thing in academic publishing - quality peer review.  This is currently a global issue.  There are organizations around the world who will accept your paper for publication within 2 - 5 days provided you can pay the price.  India and Nigeria leads in the number of such organizations per country.  Desperate for promotion, after playing politics for many years, i can approach a local journal run by my friend or a foreign fake journal and get my article published.  There are indeed organizations that hosts reputable journals and ensure they conform to the highest standards.  They include: Clarivate Analytics and Scopus.   Recently, African Journals Online (AJOL) started a rating system for African Journals.  Nigerian Universities will not rank among the global best not because we do not do quality research but because we publish more in fake journals.  Most local journals thrive on the local content policy in our promotion exercise.  Many have not improved in quality as there is no pressure. 

Waste of resources and time:  For each stage of the evaluation (Department, Faculty, and University), there is the unavoidable printing of copies of credentials and publications due to corrections and formatting.   For the senior cadres (Senior Lecturers, Readers and Professor), the same materials are usually sent to foreign researchers to evaluate!  These are the same people who reviewed the works in the first place.  We add the burden of our inefficiency to their already bloated workload of teaching, research, grantsmanship, peer-reviewing and editorship.  How many foreign evaluations do Nigerian researchers receive in a year?


Deviation from global best practices:  The publication aspect of our promotion in Nigerian Universities  does not usually align with global best practices.    For instance, it is generally accepted that advisors take the last authorship positions in a publication.  However, our policies that first author get more marks has led to advisors fighting their students over authorship positions.  Some institutions sets minimum number of volume in a journal your publication must be in to be acceptable for publication.  A State institution only accepts your publication if it is in Volume 40 and above of a journal.  If the whole world accepts this as the standard, will there be any new journal?   Articles having more than four authors generally score less mark.  These has reduced collaborations (which is what we actually need) among researchers and removal of qualified authors.


While the quality and quantify of publication is not the only criteria for promotion in Nigerian Universities, it remains the most significant.  The other aspects which are teaching and community services are most often mandatory activities.  We must improve on our current processes to accommodate only the best brains.  It is understandable if we have developed these processes to cater for our local peculiarities, however, it is pertinent to reevaluate these processes in light of new information.  Our institutions cannot be taken seriously with the way we promote mediocrity.  This reflects in the various global rankings of academic institutions.  Quality publication is not necessarily about funding; it is mainly about stretching the mind for excellent output.

My proposed solutions are presented here