Hyperprolific authorship: Unveiling the extent of extreme publishing in the ‘publish or perish’ era

Giovanni Abramo and Ciriaco Andrea D'Angelo

Journal of Informetrics, 2025, vol. 19, issue 2

Abstract: The increasing pressure of the “publish or perish” academic culture has contributed to the rise of hyperprolific authors—researchers who produce an exceptionally high number of publications. This study investigates the global phenomenon of hyperprolific authorship by analyzing the bibliometric data of over two million scholars across various disciplines from 2017 to 2019. Using field-specific thresholds to identify hyperprolific authors, we explore their geographic and disciplinary distributions, the impact of their publications, and their collaboration patterns. The results reveal that hyperprolific authors are concentrated in fields such as Clinical Medicine, Biomedical Research, and Chemistry, and in countries with substantial research investments, including China, the United States, and Germany. Contrary to concerns about a trade-off between quantity and quality, hyperprolific authors tend to produce higher-impact publications on average compared to their peers. Their output is strongly associated with extensive co-authorship networks, reflecting the role of collaboration in enabling prolific publishing. The findings underscore the need for balanced evaluation metrics that prioritize both quality and integrity in academic publishing. This study contributes to understanding the drivers and consequences of hyperprolific behavior, offering insights for research policy and evaluation practices.

Keywords: Research productivity; Scientific integrity; Incentive structures; Prolific publishing; Research evaluation; Bibliometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157725000227
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:infome:v:19:y:2025:i:2:s1751157725000227

DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2025.101658

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Informetrics is currently edited by Leo Egghe

More articles in Journal of Informetrics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().