Research in higher education plays an important role in driving government policies and social change. It is very crucial for country’s economic growth and society building. Universities play an important role in development of the country and they act as the basic platform for research and innovation. Better research culture helps in solving the issues of the society through which better policies could be produced. Unfortunately, Pakistan lacks a mature research culture.

In today's globalized world, higher education institutions are struggling to gain international visibility and global competitiveness. Universities are often ranked on the basis of their faculty’s publication rates in recognized journals. This is creating pressure for university teachers to publish often, resulting in culture of “publish or perish”. In recent years, publication pressure has become a growing concern for researchers in Pakistan. No doubt that publication is important in the academic world but the quality of research is reducing because of the emphasis on the quantity of research publications.

Initially universities of Pakistan were established for research and development e.g. Punjab University was established for research purpose of educating individuals so that they could become civil servants of the British Government. Universities became traditional education institutes instead of research institutes where education and research moves parallel. Pakistan lagged behind in research production.

To improve the standards of higher education in Pakistan and to promote research, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) was established in 2002. With its establishment, there has been exceptional increase in research publications. There was increase of 697% in articles produced during the period of 1985-2015 most of them were produced after 2000s. HEC is focusing on the internationalization of higher education institutions. HEC is taking various steps to reform the university research system. To encourage research and publication, HEC introduced publication incentives, that promotions and selections for senior academic position will be on the basis of number of publications. Consequently, number of research publications increased but quality was reduced. According to Dean of AIR University: “By setting a quantitative publication target and a simplistic journal citation ranking system as the leading criterion for tenure, the HEC has created an incentive system for low-quality research. Why would a researcher, looking at a target of ten publications to become Associate Professor, go for high-quality prestigious journals that might reject his or her work if it is not of high scholastic value? He or she would be better off going for lower-quality journals that accept any paper to ensure meeting his or her target.”  To meet the global standards, universities have been encouraged to shift towards a more research-oriented environment. The academic culture has changed because more priority is being given to research over teaching.  There is so much pressure on the researchers that they have to rush in order to meet the deadlines. In doing so they produce a low quality work.

Moreover, the researchers focus on to publish their work in recognized journals rather than focusing on producing innovative and quality research. In addition, there are frequent changes in journal recognition criteria due to which researchers face difficulties. Their papers are rejected from international journals and in local journals they have to wait for long period.

Researchers may be incentivized to produce research relevant to international context and due this local issues are neglected. Very little importance is given to social science research that generates public policies that are problem solvers of societal issues.

University teachers face work overload, they have to do teaching, supervising research students and many other organizational tasks. Teaching workload along with pressure to publish has negative impact on the quality of both teaching and research. It is also creating unhealthy competition among staff members because publication is linked with promotion.

One of the reasons for this competition is that there are limited number of local HEC recognized journals in Pakistan. The scarcity of journals puts time pressure on university teachers to publish fast, faster than their staff members in order to get promotion timely. Unfortunately, promotion is given on the basis of number of publications rather than on teaching skills. The journal ranking of HEC has not only affected the quality of teaching but have also created an incentive to publish low quality research in order to complete the targeted number. We are standing against each other rather than creating a conducive research environment. Teachers are working under stressful conditions and focusing more on publication.

Plagiarism is one of the major issues that affect the quality of academic research in Pakistan. Researchers manipulate the already available literature or research to hide their plagiarism without being caught. These practices are unethical and can have serious consequences for both the individual researcher and the wider academic community, they may be seen as a necessary evil in order to meet publication targets.

For increased research output, quality of research has been compromised and focus of research has shifted away from local priorities to get space in global market. We should focus on social science research and produce quality research, which is relevant to the local context. HEC’s policy of promoting teacher based on number of publication has negative impact on quality of research. It causes publication pressure which in-turn is having negative consequences; it is giving rise to unhealthy competition. Researchers adopt unethical ways to somehow get their work published. They are compromising on the quality of research because they only want to pursue and advance their careers.

Rewarding teachers on quantitative metrics is unhealthy for research culture of Pakistan. Ultimately, the goal should be to create an environment in which researchers are motivated to produce high-quality work, rather than simply focusing on the numbers of papers they publish.

Scientists must publish less, says Daniel Sarewitz, or good research will be swamped by the ever-increasing volume of poor work.

Our research institutions should provide proper training on research methodologies, scientific writing, and statistical analysis, so that researchers can produce quality work. Moreover, institutions should create a collaborative culture by organizing workshops and seminars where researchers can share their research ideas. By implementing these solutions we can reduce publication pressure that is impacting the quality of research and promote academic achievement.

Pakeeza Bangash is a student of Government and Public Policy from National Defence University Islamabad.