Early stage researchers in South Korea are ¡°significantly¡± more productive than those further on in their careers, a study has found, partly because the former are striving to gain tenured positions.

Those with up to 10 years¡¯ experience in ¡°hard¡± subjects such as science, engineering and medicine published an average of eight articles every three years in international journals, but this fell to less than seven when they reached the ¡°established¡± career stage (11-25 years¡¯ experience).

A drop in publication rates was also seen in ¡°soft¡± subjects, including humanities, social science and business, when academics became ¡°established¡±, according to the paper, ¡°Research productivity by career stage among Korean academics¡±.

These data contradict previous studies that found the reverse ¨C that more experienced researchers out-publish more junior colleagues ¨C notes the paper by Jisun Jung, a postdoctoral fellow in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. She cites studies that suggest ¡°most academics feel that promotion and tenure are more strongly dependent upon research output, and that the quantity of publications is more important than the quality¡±.

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¡°The nearer the time of promotion, the higher the publication rate, and, after receiving a promotion¡­.the publication rate declines,¡± the paper says. But it also advances another theory: that more experienced academics in South Korean universities were recruited before the 1990s, ¡°when there were not enough highly qualified academics¡±.

Most of those hired since 2000, in contrast, have advanced degrees from overseas or research-intensive Korean universities during a period when there was a ¡°high degree of emphasis on research performance¡±.

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The research, published in the journal Tertiary Education and Management, also found that researchers with less than four years¡¯ experience are ¡°most productive at publishing in international journals¡± ¨C following a push by the Korean government in the mid-1990s to get scholars to publish internationally.

david.matthews@tsleducation.com