Young researchers at Western universities are increasingly writing ¡°safe¡± and ¡°conservative¡± papers due to the pressure to get published, according to a scholar who has described the ¡°intense boredom¡± he feels when reading the titles of journal articles.

Richard Robison, emeritus professor in the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University, said that many academic papers are ¡°methodologically elegant but they¡¯re not interesting¡± and that ¡°debates and arguments are going out of Western universities¡±.

¡°I was at a conference recently and there were all these bright young academics there and I was just struck by how cautious they were,¡± he told Times Higher Education.

¡°Ironically, the people who are writing the most outrageous stuff tend to be older academics who¡¯ve got nothing to lose, who can publish in these journals simply because of their reputation.¡±

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He compared the approach of junior academics to divers in the Olympics opting to choose dives with ¡°a low degree of difficulty¡±.

¡°A higher degree of difficulty [means] you could really bomb out. And these [academics] were all going for the low degree of difficulty, writing very conservative things, not sticking their neck up over the parapet because they know that that¡¯s the safest way to get published and they know they¡¯re not going to come across people protecting their turf or anything like that if they¡¯re non-threatening,¡± he said.

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He added that academia ¡°rewards¡± people who do ¡°careful¡± research but that the system could change if some journals became ¡°dedicated to more risky and innovative approaches to things¡±.

¡°I [find] that [when] picking up academic journals and looking at the titles of the articles, a feeling of intense boredom washes over me,¡± he said.

However, he said that Donald Trump¡¯s election as US president may be a ¡°game changer¡± for the research conducted by young academics.

¡°If anything was going to be an incentive for people to come out and write what they thought was really important...and not just things that are going to be published, it¡¯s what¡¯s going to be happening in America over the next few years,¡± he said, adding that ¡°journals might be forced into accepting articles that are asking important questions¡±.

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¡°My feeling is with the rise of someone like Trump, you¡¯ve got to look at interesting questions, not just the number of people who voted for so-and-so in the upper house of the Tasmanian parliament...which is the sort of thing that is over-represented here [in Australia] because it¡¯s safe,¡± he continued.

¡°Tough times can bring interesting writing and journals may be more interested in what¡¯s being said rather than how it¡¯s being said.¡±

ellie.bothwell@tesglobal.com