Anatoly Oleksiyenko, Bruce Macfarlane, Miron Bhowmik, Michelle Cheng, and Yusuf Ikbal Oldac
Epistemic and citational injustice has become a major concern in global knowledge production (Dübgen, 2020; Gilaldi & McMillan, 2022; Lund, Blackmore & Rowlands, 2024; Pereira, 2024). The scientists in the Global South, as well as in the marginalized groups at major universities often find their concepts and practices neglected, and thus, their voices and conceptual perspectives are under-represented in publications and scholarly forums (Abimbola, 2023; Chimakonam, 2017; Pratt & Vries, 2023). Some factors of recognition mismanagement are internal (e.g., weak research capacities of domestic institutions and poor traditions of intellectual property or sharing), and others are external (e.g., the continued centre-periphery asymmetries, as once discussed by Altbach [2007] or neo-imperial thinking, as currently discussed by Hendl et al. [2023]). As global mega-science encourages diversity of research contributions (given that even some vocational colleges become research-oriented), the science-education complex raises new questions and concerns (Baker & Powell 2024). Does this diversification change or challenge the over-recognition and under-recognition dilemmas that persisted in the science of the previous decades? What can make ideas properly attributed to their originators and discourage social and international miscommunication of fame and flaws? Can attributive biases be eliminated in communities and networks that have become increasingly multicultural and multilingual? The apprehensions seem to grow faster than the impressive growth of “mega-science”.
In this forum, we address these questions while trying to understand the lingering influence of the Matthew Effect in the academic world, as discussed earlier by Merton (1968). The forum paper, as initiated by Anatoly Oleksiyenko, is part of our reading sessions at the Centre for Higher Education Leadership and Policy Studies (CHELPS) led by Bruce Macfarlane. This is the first of the papers in the series, which will be published in the CHELPS e-journal, Universities & Intellectuals, in anticipation of stimulating a deeper investigation of higher education dilemmas bothering scholars locally and globally.
The price of gift authorship
Bruce Macfarlane
Levels of co-, joint, or multiple authorship (hereafter co-authorship) have risen dramatically in academic publication since the late 1960s when Merton’s paper concerning the Matthew Effect was published. Co-authorship has become the norm and grown substantially in the humanities and social sciences (HSS), a practice that was previously associated mainly with STEM subjects. This trend is indicative of the STEM-ification of the HSS – the spread of cultural practices conventionally associated with STEM such as research teams, quantitative methods and collaborative publication methods. At the same time, the increasing professionalisation of the academic profession through the PhD as a standard entry point means that the cultural practice of co-authorship between research students and their doctoral supervisors has become commonplace across nearly all disciplines.
Co-publication with supervisors is commonplace in academic life in Chinese societies where the cultural concept of ‘guanxi’ plays a significant role. Doctoral supervisors are very often named as authors on publications produced almost entirely by research students even when the supervisor’s contribution is minimal and limited to proofreading, minor corrections, general advice on publication outlets, or simply as a benefit of status alone. This practice is resulting in the mass misrepresentation of authorship credit on a global scale, with many research supervisors being over-credited for contributions that do not go anywhere near fulfilling the criteria for authorship set out by the international standards of the Vancouver protocol.
The gifting of co-authorship credit to research supervisors also has serious consequences for the career prospects of research students. In the short term, these effects can be pragmatically beneficial increasing opportunities to get published by drawing on the supervisor’s insider knowledge of academic journals and accessing their academic networks to gain further opportunities. Papers published with supervisors may also attract more citations due to the inclusion of more established academic figures able to leverage their networks. While these arguments have veracity, they are invariably the ones used by supervisors to justify the abuse of their power. Hence, co-publication with a supervisor can give a research student an early career boost through higher levels of publication and citations and early career benefits may ultimately pay off through promotion from assistant to associate professor.
But by this career mid-point, the (Matthew) effect of gifting authorship credit to former supervisors and their cronies will kick in. The former student will be perceived as a follower rather than a scholarly leader, and promotion committees considering them later for a full professorship may question whether they are too dependent on their more senior and better-known collaborators. This is the Matthew Effect in action. The former supervisor will enjoy the reputational benefits of the Matthew Effect, while the former student will be perceived as the hanger-on. As a result, the former student may find that their chances of a full professorship are delayed or possibly lost forever. Gifting authorship credit, or indeed expecting others to gift theirs, is also a very hard habit to break due to enculturation.
Failing to make it to the top of the academic career ladder as a full professor is the price many pay for gifting credit for their most important and original scholarship early in their careers. It is a sadly all too common cycle of abuse that blights many academic careers, a global scandal that deserves to be exposed for what it is: fraud on a mass scale.
Discrediting Early Career Academics
Miron Bhowmik
Scholarly publications have some established practices in place. For example, the chronology of authors’ names indicates their level of contributions to an article. In general, in social science journals, the first author is assumed to be making the highest level of contributions, followed by other authors as per their order. In some journals, authors have to declare their specific areas of contributions in their article. Additionally, many journals have the provision of indicating the corresponding author for an article. Despite these well-established practices, there is a growing suspicion in the academic community concerning the contributions of early career academics when they co-author with their doctoral supervisors or other well-known scholars in the field. Anecdotal evidence suggests that recruitment or promotion board in the academia are increasingly critical about co-authored publications with doctoral supervisors.
The above phenomenon shows a mistrust about the integrity of young scholars as well as their collaborators including their supervisors or other well-known scholars. While integrity is an important value to nurture and uphold in academia for everyone, little is known about the intention of those scholars who are suspicious about young scholars’ integrity. In the higher education literature, the Matthew effect tells us young scholars’ contributions may not be rightly attributed to them when they are researching and publishing with well-known scholars. This partially explains the above phenomenon. However, questioning young scholars’ integrity requires critical scrutiny to understand how this discredits young scholars and further marginalizes those young scholars coming from minoritized backgrounds.
The phenomenon of discrediting young scholars may amount to discrimination against them and their collaborators. It marginalizes young scholars in several ways. First, young scholars’ contributions are not properly recognized. Second, their contributions are wrongly attributed to their collaborators. These are assaults done to hurt, demean and dehumanise young scholars. Third, young scholars’ agencies are invalidated. It would be important to explore more if female young scholars are more prone to such discrediting compared to male young academics. Or in ethnic and racial terms, if young academics of colour suffer more from this issue than young white academics. Or in a Chinese context, if young academics of South Asian or South-East Asian heritages are more discredited than the young Chinese academics.
Those who are involved in discrediting young academics, why are they doing this, and what are their intentions? Is it a manifestation of the power imbalance between academics who are in different phases of their careers? Is this a process of maintaining the power and privileges of some academics? How do their actions marginalize young scholars, amplify disadvantages for those from minoritized backgrounds and reproduce inequalities? These are the questions that need to be asked to challenge such an unacceptable phenomenon in the academia.
The Ethics of Authorship in Collaborative Research
Michelle W.T. Cheng
The Matthew Effect, a term coined by sociologist Merton (1968), describes the phenomenon where eminent scientists receive disproportionately more credit for collaborative work than their lesser-known counterparts. Half a century later, this concept remains relevant in explaining contemporary authorship arrangements. For instance, Padayachee (2019) discusses how honorary authorship occurs when a junior researcher includes a more seasoned researcher as a co-author to enhance the article's prominence. This practice, however, might pose significant issues during the junior researcher's promotion process (Strange, 2008), as it is often assumed that the eminent scientist was largely responsible for the output, in line with the Matthew Effect.
However, I question to what extent this should be a concern in contemporary society, especially when many reputable journals now require a detailed account of each author's contributions for publications with multiple authors. This practice explicitly acknowledges the efforts of each contributor in a transparent manner, whether their involvement stems from securing the project grant or from conceptualizing the research and analyzing the data, allowing for more accurate recognition and credit for all the authors.
I genuinely appreciate Merton's (1968) ability to recognize and reflect on such phenomena within the scientific community, particularly the concern about potential disadvantages faced by junior or less-recognized co-authors who may have contributed equally or even more to the scientific production. However, the ethical dilemmas in authorship arrangements raised by the Matthew Effect, particularly for eminent researchers who worry about receiving undue recognition and consider adopting ghost authorship to provide less-recognized co-authors with better visibility, may not be as significant if we consider it from the perspective of junior researchers.
It is not uncommon to observe that junior researchers prefer to coauthor with the senior researchers to purposely exploit the Matthew effect as a strategic approach. I have also encountered students who purposely list senior researchers in their publication, but it is not due to their significant contribution to the publication nor an unequal power relationship resulting in unfair distribution of authorship (Cheng & Leung, 2022). Instead, junior researchers may simply perceive this as a strategy to increase the visibility of their work, potentially serving as a launchpad for their academic careers.
This approach highlights a pragmatic aspect of academic publishing, where junior researchers aim to leverage the established reputation of senior academics to gain greater recognition. This resonates with the observations shared by the laureates in Merton’s paper: “The junior person is sometimes lost sight of, but only temporarily if he continues. In many cases, he actually gains in acceptance of his work and in general acceptance, by having once had such association” and “young fellows [who] feel that to have a better-known name on the paper will be of help to them.”
I believe that when authorship arrangements are made within an equal power dynamic between junior and senior co-authors, even if the Matthew effect occurs, it can still be viewed as a quid pro quo. In this arrangement, junior researchers voluntarily forego temporary individual recognition in exchange for increased long-term visibility. Senior academics are certainly encouraged to take on the moral duty (Macfarlane & Han, 2024) of informing junior researchers about the Matthew effect, further empowering them to make informed decisions regarding authorship arrangements. Viewing the Matthew effect from this approach alleviates moral dilemmas for the senior researchers and reflects a more liberal perspective that respects the decisions of consenting adults in contemporary society.
Merton's Matthew Effect at the Individual and Macro Levels
Yusuf Ikbal Oldac
The quest for a more equitable global scientific communication process begins by acknowledging the disparities in visibility and recognition. The dynamics of global scientific communication in the form of research publications have never been truly equal. In 1968, Merton famously introduced the term Matthew effect to discuss the disparities of recognition among researchers. He drew attention to the phenomenon that even when two researchers publish on the same topic, the more renowned scholar tends to receive more recognition, which came to be known as the ‘Matthew effect’ in the literature, drawing inspiration from a biblical reference.
In this section of the Forum paper, I shed light on the less discussed aspect of the Matthew effect; that is, it can manifest at different levels, including the individual and macro levels. While Merton’s paper (1968) delved into the individual-level effects of the Matthew effect, I will focus on the macro-level implications. At the macro level, empirical research demonstrated that the location from which the publications originate can lead to disparities in recognition. Notably, papers originating from the Global South are often initially met with prejudice, even when they are of equal quality to those published in more established research systems (Oldac et al., 2024; Jentsch & Pilley, 2003). This inequality in recognition is so evident that institutions and national-level policies are increasingly inclined to incentivize collaborations with locations that already possess high scientific recognition. This trend was evident during our fieldwork trips in several Global South contexts. This situation exacerbates the existing inequality, as Merton aptly put it, “the rich get richer at a rate that makes the poor become relatively poorer” (p.62) in terms of scientific recognition.
Geopolitics also influences the visibility and recognition of research, influenced by top-down national-level rivalries (Oldac, 2024; Yang et al., 2023). This phenomenon again can be discussed as a macro-level Matthew effect. Such disparities in the recognition of research work operate through national policy structures. Such top-down practices can lead to unjust and inadequate recognition of scientific advancements from the ‘other side.’ A known example of this is the decoupling between the US and Chinese research systems (Lee, 2022). Merton’s (1968) discussion of scientific redundancies (i.e., multiple discoveries of the same phenomenon) also supports this argument. Multiple discoveries of the same phenomenon can affect the visibility of breakthroughs. However, when geopolitics enters the equation, sides may seek to acknowledge their own discovery among the multiple discoveries while disregarding the breakthroughs from the other side(s).
Whether at the individual or macro levels, the Matthew effect demands countermeasures. Visibility and recognition of research publications should be based on the intellectual and scientific advances of the work, rather than on fame from previous successes, advantages from location, or top-down policies of geopolitics. One way to achieve more equitable scientific communication is to resist the socially-constructed prejudices in our minds. Against this background, journal or book series editors play a crucial role, as they daily receive publications from less well-known authors in the Global South. Also, as researchers, we must also be mindful of how we recognise others’ work. Citing others’ contributions is a fundamental aspect of recognising their importance. Here, the recommendation is not only about the individual aspects of the Matthew effect, but also striving to overcome the biases resulting from macro-level factors as explained above. By citing responsibly, we can contribute towards a more just scientific communication.
Leading Out of Misrecognition Labyrinths in Global Academic Science
Anatoly Oleksiyenko
Epistemic injustice seems to have expanded disproportionally (Lund, Blackmore & Rowlands, 2024) beyond the prophetic Matthew’s Effect observed by Robert Merton and his team in the 1960s. In the study of misrecognition in science, profoundly elaborated in the book “On the Shoulders of Giants”, Merton (1993) points out relational challenges and miscommunication unfolding beyond an individual scholar's control. Presently, the growth and diversification of scientific communities, institutions and networks have further intensified the conundrums of epistemic communication (Chimakonam, 2017; Ludwig et al., 2021) and generated an impression of the inevitability of asymmetries in recognition and resources (Baker & Powell, 2024). As we move beyond the Anglo-American organization of science and examine other systems of knowledge production with unique relational hierarchies and communal interdependencies, scientific misrecognition can’t but emerge as a global conundrum (Báez-Vizcaíno, 2024).
Yet, at the bottom of this phenomenon, there stands a moral dilemma, often fallen off the shoulders of scientific giants. Despite efforts to be good and ethically correct in small teams or in large networks of scientific knowledge, many scholars get trapped by a “broken telephone” dilemma in their citations (he said, she said, and they have to be cited because my paper will not be accepted for publication – and, hence a twisted construct gets born while also bringing a twisted line of thinking about who contributed what to the study or analytical narrative). Certainly, good scholars are supposed to be correct in attributing recognition and connotation to the cited concepts and papers. Yet, knowledge tends to transform in the process of development and communication. Knowledge users perceive or pursue certain emphases in the analytical texts which they consider more important to them or their readers at a particular time and place. In managing multiple voices and interpretations, conceptual thinking readjusts the boundaries of meaning while reshaping the coinage of scientific terms (as emperors and their mints would have done in the past). While epistemic boundaries can be perceived as harder to break in natural sciences, they are increasingly disregarded in soft sciences. Recognition of the previous coinage emerges only in occasional historical overviews. With the growing translanguaging of concepts and cognitive experiences, recognition failures tend to increase.
Enhancing epistemic and citational justice in global science thus becomes a communal rather than individual responsibility (Oleksiyenko & Ruan, 2019). International channels and editorial offices should be aware of the increasing challenge of misrecognition and under-appreciation. Supportive and socially-aware scientific giants, on whose shoulders stand the rest of their teams and communities, are increasingly important in making the scientific spaces more inclusive and appreciative (Oleksiyenko, 2014). These giants’ leadership in local and international research projects begs for more exposure and critical inquiry in the age of global competition and hierarchical juxtapositions. And I would argue for the need to rethink the idea and practice of [international] research leadership.
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Discussing these challenges would most likely acquire new and more complicated connotations if we invited a larger community of scholars to participate in our reading of Robert Merton and share their cultural and organizational experiences and insights. While the problem of epistemic injustice is most likely to persevere in the context of institutional and epistemic asymmetries and inequities, we still believe that academic communities can nurture ethical attitudes toward building inclusive and fair academic environments. Hence, the problems we have raised above deserve further investigation, and we are certainly committed to advancing the discussion and practices within a wider network of colleagues.
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