Guest post in The Scholarly Kitchen: Research deluge — are researchers writing more yet contributing less?

The volume of research output has grown exponentially worldwide in the recent years. In 2016, close to three million papers were published by researchers all around the globe, as per the recently published report by the U.S. National Science Foundation. We are witnessing a boom in science publications that is both exciting and concerning. Is this deluge in publications taking us closer to unravelling unsolved problems? Or is it leading to a situation where finding relevant literature is like finding needle in a haystack?

The article titled Research deluge — are researchers writing more yet contributing less? published as a guest post in The Scholarly Kitchen explores the following concerning aspects of the swelling volume of publications, such as:

• Researchers are adding to the global publication output, but are they really contributing to science?
• How discovering relevant literature in the expanding library of publications is becoming a real challenge for researchers
• The strain that the mass production of less valuable publications is putting on science, especially journal editors, librarians, and researchers
• The research deluge is exacerbating the problem of low uptake of replication studies in scholarly publishing

The article ends with the rumination that more research is welcome, but there is a need to consider whether the publications are leading us to the solutions necessary for a better future.

Head over to The Scholarly Kitchen to read the entire post and the comments section to catch up with the conversations that the article sparked.