The 2011 research article quality comparison by the Taiwan Higher Education Evaluation Center has been released. In certain disciplines, National Taiwan University (NTU) and National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) have reached world-class standards, even surpassing globally renowned universities, which makes the author, who has been in academia for 20-30 years, feel skeptical. For example, in the civil engineering field, NTU ranks 12th, far ahead of Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. This kind of ranking fails to convince the author, who specializes in civil engineering.
It turns out that this discussion is based on the number of publications produced by each university and how often these publications are cited, which is used for ranking. The government uses such rankings as a reference to allocate resources (funding) to universities and scholars through initiatives such as the Five-Year, $5-Billion Plan, NSC grants, flexible salaries, and NSC Outstanding Research Awards. This approach has been implemented for many years, leading to peculiar phenomena in the engineering academic community:
1. Some scholars, relying on their previous reputation, become so-called "master-level scholars" in Taiwan. With their extensive networks, they lead large projects and form research teams. They produce numerous high-quality papers, with team members frequently citing each other's work, resulting in high citation counts. A professor from National Tsing Hua University once told me: "A certain master at your school has hundreds of publications. If you subtract the citations from his team members, almost every paper's citation count approaches zero." This means that the substantial funds spent on these papers resulted in them being read mostly by his own team.
2. Younger scholars who have not yet reached the status of masters have no choice but to churn out articles and try to build good relationships with journal editors to ensure their submissions are easily accepted. The quality of these hastily written articles is concerning. For instance, one candidate for the NSC Outstanding Research Award in the civil engineering field published 105 papers in the last five years, averaging about one paper every 2-3 weeks. At such a "speed," does it harm deeper innovation? This is worth reflecting on.
3. To meet the requirements of universities or the NSC, some scholars mutually co-author papers or seek to include their former Ph.D. students or postdoctoral researchers as co-authors in their works, using their own references within the papers.
4. Over time, some university departments use funds from the Five-Year, $5-Billion Plan to invite journal editors to give lectures in Taiwan to build connections, making it easier for professors in the department to publish in those journals. Some departments also explicitly instruct their professors to cite each other's work as much as possible when writing papers, to increase the quantity of publications and citation counts within the department.
These artificial operations are only aimed at securing more funding for individuals, departments, or schools and have nothing to do with improving the quality of universities, potentially harming long-term academic development and innovation. From an academic perspective, these government policies have indeed encouraged Taiwanese scholars to transition from rarely publishing in international journals to producing numerous papers. This policy objective has been achieved. However, this short-term strategy will cause significant harm to Taiwan's academic advancement.
To avoid such harm, the Ministry of Education should directly declare which universities are research-oriented and provide them with consistent funding annually. Additionally, the selection process for university presidents should be reformed to allow truly capable and dedicated individuals to take leadership roles, granting them greater authority and responsibility. This would enable Taiwan's academic community to develop healthily.
In terms of mutual co-authorship, the current practice inflates the number of publications. It is suggested that the standard "one publication equals one paper" be maintained, regardless of the number of authors. For instance, if a paper has three authors, the main author's contribution could be counted as 1/2, the second author as 1/3, and the third author as 1/6, totaling 1. The exact distribution can be adjusted, but the total should remain 1 to reduce unfairness caused by mutual co-authorship.
Regarding the quality aspect, primarily focusing on citation counts, the concept of "self-team" citations should be considered. "Self-team" refers to individuals who have co-authored papers with the primary author. By including these citation counts, we can better understand how many people outside the team have referenced the paper, thus assessing its true contribution.
Even if changes might be challenging, improvements in the recognition of quality and quantity during the transition period are necessary. Establishing clearer standards for both aspects would promote healthier academic growth in Taiwan.
The author is a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at National Chiao Tung University.