Adrian Barnett, a professor and member of Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council, has made a significant change to how he presents his academic work: he has removed the names of journals from his CV.
Instead, Barnett now lists only the titles of his papers, each linked to the published article. This shift is an effort to move the focus away from the prestige of the journals where his work is published and towards the quality and content of the research itself.
He wrote about this in a Nature article published on Friday.
Barnett argues that the current scientific culture is overly obsessed with publishing in high-impact journals, which often skews the types of research that get published.
Studies with negative results or complex findings might be altered or overlooked to ensure they fit the mold required by prestigious journals.
By removing journal names from his CV, Barnett hopes to encourage others to evaluate his work based on its content rather than the publication venue.
The idea of omitting journal names was discussed during a recent meeting in Canberra focused on creating an Australian Roadmap for Open Research.
It has already been adopted by the University of Edinburgh, which no longer includes journal titles when publicising researchers’ new publications.
Barnett acknowledges that while his permanent position allows him the freedom to make this change, he believes that early-career researchers would also benefit from a culture that values the ‘what’ over the ‘where’ in academic publishing.
Barnett’s approach also addresses concerns about the misuse of journal titles as a proxy for research quality.
He emphasizes that committees evaluating researchers should be encouraged to delve into the substance of the work rather than relying on simplistic metrics like journal impact factors or citation counts.
Although some may argue that this could open the door for less scrupulous academics to bolster their CVs with substandard work, Barnett believes that proper training for hiring and promotion committees can mitigate this risk.
Barnett’s decision reflects a broader movement towards valuing the integrity and quality of scientific research over the traditional markers of success, such as publication in high-impact journals.
His hope is that by making this change, others in the scientific community will begin to reassess how they evaluate research and the careers of those who conduct it.
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