Quo vadis scientia? The tales of recent Croatian publications in geodesy and geophysics

Abstract

Research publications are a key indicator in evaluations of both the careers of scientists and the performance of research institutions and science systems. However, unprecedented changes in publishing have been made in recent decades following the development of solutions that can be helpful in managing publications and the conjoined peer-review process. In that spirit, we performed a comparative study of research articles reported by the Croatian Committee of Geodesy and Geophysics between two 4-year periods, 2019-2022 and 2015-2018, focusing in particular on the changes in journals and publishers between these periods. Apparently, there is a dramatic change in articles between these two periods, directed toward publishers that have much shorter evaluation times, such as MDPI and Frontiers. In almost all subcategories, the percentage of articles in the MDPI increased several times, reaching approximately 65% in hydrology and physical limnology and 30% in geodesy. We argue that these changes are worsening the reliability of science, driven by the national rules that favor the ‘publish or perish’ principle over the quality of research. Furthermore, we propose a way to cope with this problem at the national level, which should include a transition toward reliable publishers and peer-review assessments implemented during research evaluations.