Most Hyper Prolific and Most Unproductive Researchers

According to the number of publications and the number of papers produced annually, Table 5 includes some of the most hyper prolific authors. It is noteworthy that during the course of their careers, the top authors produced more than 3000 papers, which is amazing [4,5]. Actually, 930 of the list’s authors have more than 1000 papers to their credit. Table 5 further breaks down the quantity of papers by the duration of the study (calculated by last minus first year). Elisabeth Mahase once more emerged as the most prolific author, producing nearly 220 papers annually.
Some of the authors (Table 5) are journalists, according to a more thorough investigation. For BMJ, Elisabeth Mahase and Abi Rimmer cover news. Even more alarmingly, Mahase and Rimmer outperformed most authors in terms of scientific output, since Scopus regards news articles as “peer review” publications.
Table 5 includes John P.A. Ioannidis, who has critically published about hyper prolific authors despite not being in the top 5. Since 1994, Ioannidis has published 45 papers per year on average. According to Scopus, Ioannidis published 52-80 papers per year from 2016 to 2021, or 1 paper every 5 days, “a figure that many would consider implausibly prolific” [4,5]. According to this ranking, Ioannidis is ranked 32 in the database, higher than the majority of Nobel laureates.
The most prolific authors who have written a paper entirely by themselves are further examined in this study. Table 6 shows the outcomes. It’s incredible that these authors, who are all from clinical medicine, have written almost 2200 publications by themselves. The majority of these authors are journalists from BMJ and other news organizations, as was previously mentioned. The exception is Viroj Wiwanitkit from Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, a University in Pune who published, on average, 74 papers per year.
This outcome emphasizes even more the basic issue in so-called “databases of standardized citation indicators,” which fail to distinguish between news pieces and articles written by journalists [3]. This so-called standardized citation indicator gives first-author and single-authored papers more weight. Scientists from MIT, Stanford, or any other scientist who had to put in a lot of effort in experimental research have a considerably lower c rank than writer Elisabeth Mahase, who can produce a one-page news piece every two days and is listed with a rank of #33363. According to the Stanford list, journalist Bridget M. Kuehn is ranked #17026, much ahead of 2021 Nobel Prize winner in medicine Ardem Patapoutian (ranked #28519), and 2022 Nobel Prize winner in physics Alain Aspect (ranked #20486).
Given that Goodhart’s Law argues that “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure,” this rank is susceptible to manipulation and abuse. Based on this standardized citation rank, John Ioannidis ranked himself as number 32.
In recent years, there has been a soar in the number of scientists who are listed as having published an excessive number of scientific articles, often at a rate much higher than their peers and many would find it implausible. While productivity is generally considered a positive outcome, researchers who are extremely productive run the risk of raising questions about the quantity, quality, and significance of their output. In some cases, cash incentives can be the driving force for hyper prolific authors. Ethically, it is questionable if these hyper-prolific authors even read their own papers, as they are often “honorary” authors who do not deserve credit. It shows the danger of an over-reliance on publication data, some authors are mainly added to papers to complement the head of the lab with funding.
Hyper-prolific authors have a higher degree of citations because they generate more works that are encouraged for citation. Some use collaborative research strategy to boost papers, exposure, and editorial task. The conditioning of the data can maximize publications as journals are more likely to publish studies with conclusive, encouraging findings that were written by well-known, hyper-prolific authors. In short, being labeled as a hyper-prolific scientist should be cause for concern rather than pride. The “publish-or-perish” ethos that has dominated science for decades is the main reason behind their existence.
Table 5. Top most prolific authors in terms of number of papers and number of papers per year