After completing my Master's at Amravati University, a place with little exposure to research or proper experimental labs, I took a significant step forward in my academic career by joining DRDE Gwalior for my PhD. It was a well-funded institute, but access to its state-of-the-art facilities was controlled by individuals with a mindset that discouraged sharing resources, as if helping others would hurt their own research. This sadistic mentality made it extremely difficult to conduct the research I had envisioned.
Under these challenging circumstances, with limited support from my PhD guide—despite his energy and good intentions—I found myself publishing incremental work just to complete my PhD. When I look back at the papers I published during this time, I feel a deep sense of disappointment. I often ask myself, "Why did I publish such incremental work?" The answer, of course, is that it was the best I could do under the given conditions and guidance. I did the best I could.
After completing my PhD, I moved to ENSC Montpellier in France. The research culture there was vastly different. It was centered around deep, meaningful work, and I finally began to enjoy the process of doing research. However, the working hours—just 4.5 days per week, with strict 8-hour days—weren't enough to produce significant results. Frustrated, I left France and joined the USEPA lab in Cincinnati.
At USEPA, the pressure to publish was immense. Even if you publish one paper a month, it wasn’t enough to satisfy the relentless demands of publication. This environment pushed me back into the trap of incremental research, working on hot topics like microwave synthesis and magnetic catalysis just to keep up with the publishing demands. I wrote many incremental papers, but it was a huge challenge to write them due to my limited command of English. I was born in a small village in Maharashtra, and completed my education up to the 12th grade in Marathi. Naturally, my English skills were weak. Yet here I was, expected to write academic papers every month. It was an incredibly painful experience. Looking back, I feel sorry for myself for having wasted so much valuable time on work that didn’t contribute meaningfully to science.
By the last year of my postdoc at USEPA, I had a realization: this numbers-driven race was leading me nowhere. I decided to stop chasing publications and to focus on quality instead. I indeed managed to publish a few good papers before leaving USEPA. But the question remained: why did I publish so many papers? Yes, part of it was due to pressure from my supervisor. But I also have to be honest with myself—there was my greed involved. I wanted to build up my publication count, increase my citations, and raise my h-index so that I could secure a job in India. This is the unfortunate truth of Indian academia—it values numbers over quality, although things have begun to change in recent years.
The turning point in my professional life came when I joined KAUST as a senior scientist and then as an assistant professor. This was my first position as an independent PI, with no pressure from a supervisor. The focus here was entirely on the quality of research, not the quantity of publications. For the first time, I was able to conduct unique, impactful research, and I felt deeply satisfied with my work. The research I did at KAUST was novel and of high quality, forming the foundation of the career I built when I later joined TIFR in Mumbai.
TIFR, one of the best places in India to conduct high-quality research, offered an environment that valued deep understanding and innovative experiments. Here, collaboration with experts was not just encouraged but appreciated. If you produced good science, you generally received strong support from your peers—though, of course, there were always a few envious colleagues who tried to hinder my progress in every possible way (That’s a story for another day).
Now, as a researcher, I am genuinely happy and satisfied. My group focuses on high-quality research, improving every year. We are proud of our work, which naturally finds its way into top-rated journals and is followed by awards, medals, and fellowships from national and international bodies. We are not chasing these accolades; they come naturally as a result of the quality of our research.
While it’s not always possible to produce ground-breaking work, our aim should always be to push the boundaries of knowledge, not to chase metrics like the number of papers, citations, or h-index. The system is a scam, one that many Indian scientists are trapped in, and one that international publishers exploit for profit. But there is a way out, and it starts with shifting our focus back to the real purpose of science—solving problems, advancing knowledge, and making meaningful contributions to the world.
I write this article in the context of the "Top 2% World Ranking of Scientists" and the broader issue of the publishing rat race in India. I, too, was part of this system, at times flaunting these rankings, my h-index, and citation counts. But I’ve since learned my lesson and eventually broke free from it. It took me over a decade to realize how damaging this numbers game can be, and I regret the time I wasted chasing metrics.
My message is simple: don’t make the same mistakes I did. If Indian science is to truly progress, we must let go of this obsession with quantity and focus on quality, aiming for novel, ground-breaking discoveries.
Prof. Vivek Polshettiwar
TIFR, Mumbai
www.nanocat.co.in
25th September 2024
Under these challenging circumstances, with limited support from my PhD guide—despite his energy and good intentions—I found myself publishing incremental work just to complete my PhD. When I look back at the papers I published during this time, I feel a deep sense of disappointment. I often ask myself, "Why did I publish such incremental work?" The answer, of course, is that it was the best I could do under the given conditions and guidance. I did the best I could.
After completing my PhD, I moved to ENSC Montpellier in France. The research culture there was vastly different. It was centered around deep, meaningful work, and I finally began to enjoy the process of doing research. However, the working hours—just 4.5 days per week, with strict 8-hour days—weren't enough to produce significant results. Frustrated, I left France and joined the USEPA lab in Cincinnati.
At USEPA, the pressure to publish was immense. Even if you publish one paper a month, it wasn’t enough to satisfy the relentless demands of publication. This environment pushed me back into the trap of incremental research, working on hot topics like microwave synthesis and magnetic catalysis just to keep up with the publishing demands. I wrote many incremental papers, but it was a huge challenge to write them due to my limited command of English. I was born in a small village in Maharashtra, and completed my education up to the 12th grade in Marathi. Naturally, my English skills were weak. Yet here I was, expected to write academic papers every month. It was an incredibly painful experience. Looking back, I feel sorry for myself for having wasted so much valuable time on work that didn’t contribute meaningfully to science.
By the last year of my postdoc at USEPA, I had a realization: this numbers-driven race was leading me nowhere. I decided to stop chasing publications and to focus on quality instead. I indeed managed to publish a few good papers before leaving USEPA. But the question remained: why did I publish so many papers? Yes, part of it was due to pressure from my supervisor. But I also have to be honest with myself—there was my greed involved. I wanted to build up my publication count, increase my citations, and raise my h-index so that I could secure a job in India. This is the unfortunate truth of Indian academia—it values numbers over quality, although things have begun to change in recent years.
The turning point in my professional life came when I joined KAUST as a senior scientist and then as an assistant professor. This was my first position as an independent PI, with no pressure from a supervisor. The focus here was entirely on the quality of research, not the quantity of publications. For the first time, I was able to conduct unique, impactful research, and I felt deeply satisfied with my work. The research I did at KAUST was novel and of high quality, forming the foundation of the career I built when I later joined TIFR in Mumbai.
TIFR, one of the best places in India to conduct high-quality research, offered an environment that valued deep understanding and innovative experiments. Here, collaboration with experts was not just encouraged but appreciated. If you produced good science, you generally received strong support from your peers—though, of course, there were always a few envious colleagues who tried to hinder my progress in every possible way (That’s a story for another day).
Now, as a researcher, I am genuinely happy and satisfied. My group focuses on high-quality research, improving every year. We are proud of our work, which naturally finds its way into top-rated journals and is followed by awards, medals, and fellowships from national and international bodies. We are not chasing these accolades; they come naturally as a result of the quality of our research.
While it’s not always possible to produce ground-breaking work, our aim should always be to push the boundaries of knowledge, not to chase metrics like the number of papers, citations, or h-index. The system is a scam, one that many Indian scientists are trapped in, and one that international publishers exploit for profit. But there is a way out, and it starts with shifting our focus back to the real purpose of science—solving problems, advancing knowledge, and making meaningful contributions to the world.
I write this article in the context of the "Top 2% World Ranking of Scientists" and the broader issue of the publishing rat race in India. I, too, was part of this system, at times flaunting these rankings, my h-index, and citation counts. But I’ve since learned my lesson and eventually broke free from it. It took me over a decade to realize how damaging this numbers game can be, and I regret the time I wasted chasing metrics.
My message is simple: don’t make the same mistakes I did. If Indian science is to truly progress, we must let go of this obsession with quantity and focus on quality, aiming for novel, ground-breaking discoveries.
Prof. Vivek Polshettiwar
TIFR, Mumbai
www.nanocat.co.in
25th September 2024