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Note that the article specifies that these cartels mostly feature participants from bad universities in countries that have really whacked-out academic reward m

Note that the article specifies that these cartels mostly feature participants from bad universities in countries that have really whacked-out academic reward mechanisms that arose because some powerful central government force that doesn't understand research productivity came up with a dumb way to incentivize it. Prestige is not a failsafe guarantor of quality, but it kind of is, in the sense that somebody with a reputation to protect is going to be more careful about coming across as "unserious", and doing stuff like this is a good way to get a bad reputation quickly.

lupire 3y ago
"Prestigious" people just do it in a more refined way, managing perception instead of raw numbers.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  We can safely assume MIT has a much higher quality output than King Abdulaziz University back in Jeddah. In general, State Flagships and Ivy Leagues+Ivy Tier Privates are largely comparable research output wise. The GP is right about prestige minimizing bad practices. Look at how diluted Northeastern's brand has become by trying to artificially inflating their prestige [1] [1] - https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/ https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeast...
jampekka 3y ago
It happens everywhere to some extent.
ineedasername 3y ago
>powerful central government force that doesn't understand research productivity [1]* I'm sure they understand it. But their goal in doing this isn't really research productivity (though it would be a happy byproduct) it's to obtain prestige, or its illusion. And/or be able to tell the people of your country how great you're doing. "Our country is a rising powerhouse in field X, in the top 3 in the world and still rising!" It's internal propaganda. And externally targeted towards populations of other countries unfamiliar with the academic publishing system, which is most people. So for example the vast majority of people in the US that hear these claims by China, which are then echoed in click-bait headlines or simply taken at face value after a journalist checks something like the various HCR lists. It can even be propaganda, not from China, but from other countries. One of the studies was funded by the US State Department to an Australian group, thus obscuring a primary influence on the results of the study. Then even a single newspaper article can spark a dozen others citing it, propagating the message. All of these directly or indirectly rely on citations to support their headlines [2] https://www.science.org/content/article/china-rises-first-place-most-cited-papers https://www.science.org/content/article/china-rises-first-pl... https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-universities-continue-to-falter-in-world-rankings-china-rising-11665535646 https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-universities-continue-... https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2023-03-02/china-leads-us-in-global-competition-for-key-emerging-technology-study-says https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2023-03-02/... https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE72R6FQ/ https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE72R6FQ/ [1] The quality of this comment will be measured by metrics that I made up myself. [2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/china-leads-us-global-competition-key-emerging-technology-study-says-2023-03-02/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/china-leads-us-global-com... *This comment was funded by a grant from its author.
- maxglute 3y ago
  >isn't really research productivity (though it would be a happy byproduct) Or the goal is research productivity and citation gaming is just the unhappy byproduct. Yes some motivated actors to playup PRC capabilities (ASPI/US think tanks) exist, but unless you think every western index on science and innovation, controlled for quality of citations (like Nature) are incentivized/coordinated to carry water for PRC's massive increase in research productivity in the last few years, then the parsimonious answer is PRC research productivity has gotten really good and world leading in some domains. Which should not be surprising because what OP fails to understand incentivizing citation gaming is a smart way to incentivize output, FAST, and at PRC scale output quantity has quality of it's own. If system spams research, and start off with only 2/10 good research, but leader is 3/5 good research, then PRC has nearly caught up. Refine to 3/10 and there's parity. Refine system to 4/10 and PRC leads. Emphasis being fast because PRC started focusing on seriously improving tertiary and R&D/S&T ~10 years ago and the goal was to develop capabilites fast by customary overproduction. You don't get that by slow careful growth, you do that by incentivizing easy KPIs everyone in sector can coordinate around and the product of said KPI is ENOUGH good research after byproduct of citation gaiming. Having a bunch of chaff leftover to get wheat is the point.

lupire 3y ago

"Prestigious" people just do it in a more refined way, managing perception instead of raw numbers.

alephnerd 3y ago
We can safely assume MIT has a much higher quality output than King Abdulaziz University back in Jeddah. In general, State Flagships and Ivy Leagues+Ivy Tier Privates are largely comparable research output wise. The GP is right about prestige minimizing bad practices. Look at how diluted Northeastern's brand has become by trying to artificially inflating their prestige [1] [1] - https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/ https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeast...

jampekka 3y ago

It happens everywhere to some extent.

ineedasername 3y ago

>powerful central government force that doesn't understand research productivity [1]* I'm sure they understand it. But their goal in doing this isn't really research productivity (though it would be a happy byproduct) it's to obtain prestige, or its illusion. And/or be able to tell the people of your country how great you're doing. "Our country is a rising powerhouse in field X, in the top 3 in the world and still rising!" It's internal propaganda. And externally targeted towards populations of other countries unfamiliar with the academic publishing system, which is most people. So for example the vast majority of people in the US that hear these claims by China, which are then echoed in click-bait headlines or simply taken at face value after a journalist checks something like the various HCR lists. It can even be propaganda, not from China, but from other countries. One of the studies was funded by the US State Department to an Australian group, thus obscuring a primary influence on the results of the study. Then even a single newspaper article can spark a dozen others citing it, propagating the message. All of these directly or indirectly rely on citations to support their headlines [2] https://www.science.org/content/article/china-rises-first-place-most-cited-papers https://www.science.org/content/article/china-rises-first-pl... https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-universities-continue-to-falter-in-world-rankings-china-rising-11665535646 https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-universities-continue-... https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2023-03-02/china-leads-us-in-global-competition-for-key-emerging-technology-study-says https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2023-03-02/... https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE72R6FQ/ https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE72R6FQ/ [1] The quality of this comment will be measured by metrics that I made up myself. [2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/china-leads-us-global-competition-key-emerging-technology-study-says-2023-03-02/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/china-leads-us-global-com... *This comment was funded by a grant from its author.

maxglute 3y ago
>isn't really research productivity (though it would be a happy byproduct) Or the goal is research productivity and citation gaming is just the unhappy byproduct. Yes some motivated actors to playup PRC capabilities (ASPI/US think tanks) exist, but unless you think every western index on science and innovation, controlled for quality of citations (like Nature) are incentivized/coordinated to carry water for PRC's massive increase in research productivity in the last few years, then the parsimonious answer is PRC research productivity has gotten really good and world leading in some domains. Which should not be surprising because what OP fails to understand incentivizing citation gaming is a smart way to incentivize output, FAST, and at PRC scale output quantity has quality of it's own. If system spams research, and start off with only 2/10 good research, but leader is 3/5 good research, then PRC has nearly caught up. Refine to 3/10 and there's parity. Refine system to 4/10 and PRC leads. Emphasis being fast because PRC started focusing on seriously improving tertiary and R&D/S&T ~10 years ago and the goal was to develop capabilites fast by customary overproduction. You don't get that by slow careful growth, you do that by incentivizing easy KPIs everyone in sector can coordinate around and the product of said KPI is ENOUGH good research after byproduct of citation gaiming. Having a bunch of chaff leftover to get wheat is the point.