Short abstract

The paper will summarize the main lessons learnt about how the introduction of incentives (pay for publications) in South Africa over the past twenty years have produce a vast array of unintended, unexpected and especially questionable gaming practices by South African academics

Long abstract

The introduction of a new Research Output Policy in 2005 by the South African Department of Higher Education has impacted hugely on the publication strategies of academics at public universities in the country. CREST (our research centre) has been studying and assessing the impact of this policy since its inception and produced four main reports over this period. The incentive system is nearly unique in the world as individual academics can - depending on university-specific rules, actually receive supplements to their annual salary for the number of publications produced. We will highlight in this presentation the five most problematic and even devastating effects of this system, viz.

(1) Increase in publication in predatory journals and conference proceedings

(2) The establishment of publication cartels

(3) Increase in publication of poor quality journals

(4) Increase in ghost author affiliations

The second part of the talk will report briefly on a national research programme that we lead to address these unethical and even fraudulent behaviours and identify the key strategies that should be accepted and implemented by the DHET in a revision of the policy in the near future. A revision of the policy is urgently needed as public trust in this subsidy-system has already been eroded and the rationale behind this publicly funded instrument questioned.