Research Vs Publication Business

Abstract

Research means the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources to establish facts and reach new conclusions. In other words, we can say that adding new knowledge to the presently acquired knowledge is research. Publication Business is the business of producing printed material for sale or distribution. The business of issuing printed matter for sale or distribution. If we keep research in one hand and publication business in other hand, we can easily differentiate these two entities as entirely different entities. Publication business follows corporate business rules with huge number of profits involved. In this business model all stakeholders including researchers, journals, publishers and indexing and funding agencies are depended on each other for their survival. They all have mutual financial benefits. In the opinion of author/editor of this editorial the core research is somewhere lost in the new business world. If we ask researchers     about the aim of their research, we might get different answers. Many researchers or nearly all agreed that they are doing research however at many occasions it is just a data processing and the conclusions are sometime not even compatible with their own findings. Making strict criteria and guidelines to limit the unnecessary publications may sometimes create trouble to the core researchers. The acknowledgement of a good quality research is based on how much high impact the publishing journal is.

My question at this point is that “If high-quality research is published in a journal which not indexed in reputed indexing agencies or meet other publication requirement, whether this king of research loses it value or credibility” or a research which is not published at all is considered no knowledge. In this context the scientist who invented fire and has not published this research in ISI indexed or Scopus indexed journal, might be ignored. In this case I suggest not to use fire as this might me considered as nonscientific method which is prohibited to be used ethically and legally. Our legal system prohibited us from using nonscientific methods in our practices.

The above impractical scenario is mentioned just to realize the importance of research in this era of publication business.

It is concluded here that core true sense of high impact research is faded with the invasion of publication business. The controller of publication business has their own standards and business models implemented in the corporate business model. The marketing strategy for corporate business houses is very impactful of which distorted the psychological and senses of the policy makers and a false bubble of fake research and development model is created. In this new model the ideation of scientist doing research is comprised to cope with the new definitions of Good Quality and impacted research and development. The young scientist joining the profession are a little bit more afraid to conduct good research which may not be acknowledged by the business leaders of new model who sometimes lacking good knowhow of the core subjects. It is recommended to develop a new system for research and development evaluation which must have limited dependence on finance and control from non-professional of the field of research.

Dr Imran Sabri, MD FRCP Edin, FFLM

Editor-in-Chief

International Journal of Medical Justice

Email: editor@ijmj.net