News
Dramatic increase in international articles The number of published articles have increased dramatically at all of the University of Gothenburg’s faculties, statistics from the University Library’s digital services show. The greatest increase is in the humanities and social sciences, particularly at the Faculty of Education. LARS KULLMAN,
bibliometrician at the University Library has produced the statistics, which are based on Web of Science. He points out that Sahlgrenska Academy accounts for as much as 58 percent of all published articles at the University of Gothenburg, and the Faculty of Science accounts for 19 percent. – Of course, it is more difficult for faculties that already publish extensively, and which are well covered in Web of Science, to increase publications further compared to those faculties that publish less, and are going from low levels of coverage. Web of Science, which mainly shows articles from international, peer-reviewed journals, has relatively low coverage of the humanities and social sciences, and even though the coverage has improved over the past few years, this means that comparisons over time are somewhat less certain for these subjects. But the trend, that researchers within the humanities and social sciences publish an increasing number of articles, and in English, is still clear and also corresponds with what we can see in the GUP. According to the GUP, which is better suited to comparisons within education sciences, the Faculty of Education has increa-
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GUJOURNAL MARCH 2021
sed the number of articles it has published by almost 50 percent in five years, says Dean Åke Ingerman. – The increase in the number of published articles began at the beginning of the 2000s, and the number of portfolio theses in particular have grown considerably over the past few years. Furthermore, from 2020, education sciences will receive an extra 27.7 million krona, which is a way of evening out historical discrepancies between the faculties. This will certainly increase the rate of publication even more. The Department of Food and Nutrition and Sport Science is one of the faculty’s departments that publishes the greatest number of articles. – This may be because both food and nutrition and sport science are cross-disciplinary subjects, drawing from the humanities, social sciences and science, says Head of Department Frode Slinde. The subjects are also international in nature, so it is only natural to present research findings in English in international journals. A researcher’s scientific publications are crucial for receiving external research grants, but they are also one of the factors in the faculty’s internal allocation model for research funding, he points out. – Of course, publications are also an important part of a researcher’s qualifications, as well as one of the factors considered in recruitments and promotions. Naturally, having more of the
In addition, there is a risk of fragmentation, i.e. that researchers write articles about the smallest breakdown of results. ÅKE INGERMAN
faculty’s research findings published in various journals is a positive thing. But it is also important to have constant discussions about what it means to publish, Åke Ingerman points out. – For example, we need to warn researchers about predatory journals, which charge a fee for publishing and are of sub-par quality. It would also be unfortunate if the many publications in English were to lead to an impoverishment of the Swedish language. Furthermore, within education sciences there is a wealth of journals that can be very broad in scope and that lack a clear hierarchy. In addition, there is a risk of fragmentation, i.e. that researchers write articles about the smallest breakdown of results. This may make the field difficult to review. One department that has maintained a high level of publication over a long period of time, but still managed to improve their numbers further, is the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Social Sciences. In 2014, there were 84 published articles in Web of Science, five years later the figure was 107. – Part of the explanation may be that the subject of psychology has a long tradition of publishing in reputable journals, Prefect Kerstin Falkman explains. More or less all of our doctoral students write portfolio theses. Our subject is also close to medicine, in both content and tradition, in terms of things such as co-authors, dividing studies into different articles, etc. And for some years now, the department has also instituted a publishing policy, where the quality of the journal is emphasised, which should lead to many
