Nature 441, 785-786 (15 June 2006) | doi:10.1038/441786a; Published online 14
June 2006

Cash-per-publication...
Top of pageAbstract.....is an idea best avoided.

South Korea has become the latest country to offer scientists cash prizes for
publications in top-level international journals (see page 792). Other
nations, including China and Pakistan, already have such programmes in place.
The thousands, or even tens of thousands, of dollars on offer can be a fat
prize for researchers in countries with lean science budgets.

Many researchers will turn up their noses at this practice. Scientists, after
all, are supposed to be motivated by curiosity, by a devotion to finding the
truth, by a desire to solve various philosophical or social problems — not
by money. And funds should find their way to self-motivated scientists with a
project deemed important. This assessment should be made by taking account of
the project's feasibility, originality and scientific significance.

But this is no easy task in any country. In countries with inexperienced or
understaffed scientific evaluation committees, it is almost impossible.
Without the proper mechanism in place, funding can be diluted by equal
distribution to all, or hijacked by projects approved on the basis of
personal connections rather than sound science. Where there is little faith
in review committees, giving money directly to those who have proven
themselves might seem a beneficial, albeit imperfect, way of encouraging
scientists.

Proponents can point to other potential advantages too. Scaling up bonuses
for high-impact papers, as these programmes often do, might stem the urge to
churn out quick papers in order to beef up a publication list. (Graduate
students in China often need to have several publications for higher
degrees.) And they also encourage scientists in countries with traditions of
local-language publishing to think more internationally.

But there are some powerful arguments against the widespread adoption of the
practice. Cash bonuses tied to specific publications are likely to exacerbate
corrupting tendencies in the scientific community. Debates over who should be
included on author lists, and who should be the first author and the
corresponding author, will surely get even more vicious when a chunk of money
is on the line. A scientist struggling to meet a mortgage payment might be
more willing to forgo a potentially fantastic result for a quick cash-earner.
And a researcher measuring science in terms of dollars might even be more
tempted to plagiarize or fabricate data.

In countries recently damaged by high-profile cases of scientific corruption,
where it is all the more essential to develop a culture of integrity, the
award of large sums of money for high-impact publications is even less
desirable. The scientific world already places too much importance on
high-impact journals in assessing individuals, and on the crude 'impact
factor' in particular (see Nature 435, 1003–1004; 2005). Papers published in
journals with high impact factors do indeed tend to be significant papers,
but a literal formula highly geared in their favour cannot do justice to the
way science works.

Money does matter, of course. Scientifically developing countries need to
compete for excellent scientists in an increasingly global marketplace. And
scientists everywhere use their reputations, based on their latest and
greatest papers, to negotiate raises, promotions or new jobs. So countries
struggling to find ways of motivating their scientists need to reward
outstanding researchers for good publications, perhaps by paying a bonus
based on a peer review of achievements over at least a year.

But nations and agencies should avoid resorting to crude cash-per-paper
incentives. They should instead attempt to be less formulaic and more
considered in the ways they reward their scientists. And they should redouble
their efforts to ensure that, in the midst of concerns about rewards, young
scientists are committed above all to the ethical pursuit of scientific
truths.
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