The Effects of the “Publish or Perish Syndrome” on Research and Innovation in Nigerian Universities

Abstract

The pressure to publish rapidly and constantly is a phenomenon engulfing academia in all countries of the globe. It has, over the years, affected research and innovation in a mostly negative way. In Nigerian universities in particular, this culture has mainly been a syndrome, manifested by (1) the urge among faculty members to publish more for promotions and positions than for genuine research production, (2) publishing for purely capitalistic motivations, (3) the use of unorthodox methodologies to boost citation index, and (4) fictive authorship of research works among others. All these objectionable practices have been responsible for various forms of decay in research and teaching in the Nigerian university system. They have, for instance, made plagiarism, data mining, predatory journals, duplicate publications, among other challenges, pervade research in Nigerian universities, causing innovation to remain more an ideal than a reality in these tertiary institutions. Using empirical understandings and critical observations, this chapter illustrates all these issues.