South AfricaDaily Maverick1 d ago

The varsity research subsidy game is up — the education department must not back down

The higher education minister’s latest communique takes aim at hyper-publication, predatory journals and rent-an-affiliation deals. Some universities seem rattled. His department must stand firm. Sioux McKenna is professor of higher education research at Rhodes University. One academic submitted 125 journal articles and 30 conference presentations for subsidy last year. That is an article every three days. Another author claimed seven books in a single year. Nobody creates science at that pace, even if ChatGPT is doing the writing. The figures come from Johann Mouton’s CREST team, which tracks how the publication subsidy is gamed.

Read the full story here