A hearing on Capitol Hill today explored issues in scientific publishing — and Retraction Watch had a seat at the table.
The Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology called the hearing to talk about open access, reproducibility, predatory journals, paper mills and the incentive structure in science. The wide remit meant the committee and witnesses touched on quite a few topics in 90 minutes.
Our testimony, delivered by managing editor Kate Travis, focused on the pitfalls of “publish or perish” and how an overreliance on metrics has incentivized shortcuts in research and publishing. “‘Publish or perish’ is what has allowed businesses like paper mills and predatory journals to flourish, and more recently is leading to an explosion of AI-generated papers flooding journals,” Travis told the subcommittee.
Those incentives have a global impact. “A number of news outlets have recently reported on data showing that China has overtaken the U.S. on many measures of scientific prestige and accomplishment,” we said in our written testimony submitted in advance of the hearing. “Some of this rise is due to investment by the Chinese government and real productivity gains. But some of it is also due to gaming the metrics by which science output is judged.”
Several subcommittee members focused on the issues in the context of the president’s 2027 proposed budget, which includes some deep cuts to scientific research. While we didn’t specifically weigh in on the proposed budget, we took the opportunity to talk in our written testimony about what retractions tell us about the research ecosystem:
“The growing retraction rate should be interpreted as a sign of progress,” our testimony states. “It is, in fact, an argument for more investment in scientific research that is performed carefully and rigorously, and corrected when necessary. But retractions still take too long, and do not happen as often as they should.”
Find our written testimony and other information about the hearing here, as well as a recording of the hearing.
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