The Publication Vortex

When academics leave academia, the reasons mirror most career transitions: the misalignment between personal values and organizational culture becomes too great. But academia has a particular way of manifesting this misalignment. It promises freedom and autonomy, the ability to pursue questions that matter to you, while simultaneously creating conditions where that freedom feels increasingly illusory. I'm not talking about workload modelling or administrative creep, though those matter. I'm talking about something more fundamental: academia's unique relationship with control, or rather, the illusion of it.

The Predictable and Unpredictable in Academic Life

Here's what we can predict in academia: the pressure to publish will continue to exist. The volume of output will continue to grow at a seemingly impossible rate. Quality will remain variable as a result. What we cannot predict, and what many struggle to accept, is nearly everything else. Which journals will accept your work. How reviewers will respond. Which papers will resonate with your field. Your academic legacy itself is determined not by you, but by everyone else.

This fundamental lack of control creates anxiety. And in response, many academics, especially early-career researchers, have adopted a coping mechanism: publish as much as possible as quickly as possible.

The logic seems sound: if so much is unpredictable, at least you can control your output. Publish prolifically, and surely something will stick.

The Publication Vortex

But this strategy reveals a troubling gap in academic mentorship. I've never been told to publish less in my career. Perhaps I should have been. I've been told by people across disciplines to publish in specific places based on the premise that journal prestige alone can create the illusion of expertise. Which, of course, is bollocks, given that every journal under the sun contains work of variable quality.

Many early-career researchers have been pulled into a publication vortex - an impulsive drive to push out paper after paper. The work isn't always bad, but it's often incomplete. With more time, another study, and better integration, these publications could have been stronger. They could have had more impact. But there's this pervasive feeling: "I can't just sit on it. I have to keep pushing." Time runs out. Funding runs out. And we end up with fragmented bodies of work that could have really changed something.

The reality is that when a CV looks too good to be true, hiring committees are increasingly recognizing that it probably is. Those who consistently produce fantastic work have surrounded themselves with other brilliant minds and built something coherent, not just voluminous.

Yet when exceptional productivity in some fields is driven by prior working relationships with the editors who handle papers, hiring committees seem far less troubled, even though such relationships smooth the path to publication in ways talent alone cannot. This reveals something uncomfortable about what we're selecting for: not just quality of work, but access to the right networks and gatekeepers.

The Mentorship Gap

This phenomenon isn't entirely new, and senior colleagues confirm it has always been an issue. I once remember a professor many years ago telling me, while browsing CVs, that he "really wasn't interested in the candidate's letters to Aunty Dora." But the proliferation is even greater now. Recent shifts, including the transition to PhDs by publication in the UK, may be accelerating the problem, pushing toward volume when integration might serve researchers better. And all of these points lead to a critical question: What guidance are we giving people about what matters?

The mentorship provided (if any) around publication strategy is remarkably variable across academia. Some advisors push for volume. Others emphasize quality. Many offer no clear guidance at all. And in that vacuum, anxious researchers default to the strategy that feels like control: publish everything, publish often.

There lies the uncomfortable truth: you don't get to decide your legacy. Certain papers stick; others don't. That's up to everyone else. The number of publications is not the measure that endures.

What We Owe Early Career Researchers

We need to be more honest about what is and isn't within an academic's control. We need to acknowledge that much of academic success depends on factors beyond individual effort that including timing, reviewer mood, field trends, and sheer luck.

And we need to provide better mentorship around publication strategy. Not just "publish or perish," but thoughtful guidance about building a coherent body of work. About knowing when to integrate rather than fragment. About recognizing that the appearance of productivity is not the same as meaningful contribution.

What might this look like in practice? I don't claim to have definitive answers, but perhaps it starts with supervisors actively discussing publication strategy. Not as an afterthought, but as a core part of research training. It means making sure annual reviews with researchers involve people who are actually familiar with their work, and that isn't always their line manager. This can help identify when they have enough to say something meaningful, rather than when they have enough to say something publishable. It means modelling restraint as much as productivity.

We also need to be honest about the rules of the game, which are inconsistent between communities of researchers, disciplines, and institutions. What works in one field may not work in another. But that variability doesn't absolve us of the responsibility to provide some guidance rather than none.

The path forward requires accepting uncertainty while resisting the false comfort of frantic productivity. That involves focusing energy on what we can control: the quality and coherence of our contributions, however many or few there may be.

Because ultimately, publishing huge numbers of papers provides a sense of security and control that doesn't actually exist. And the sooner we're honest about that, the better we can guide the next generation of academics.