I have commented before about the entry of metric regimes into academia, invariably negatively. They are inimical to creative thinking and publishing and a tailor-made instrument of managerial control. I have also put my own stats where my mouth is and suggested that I have been notably less ‘productive’ than many members of my own cohort and even more so in relation to members of the cohorts that follow me (even if more productive than the cohort I succeeded). For context, Google Scholar tells me my h-index is 55 and my i10 index is 120. My most cited publications as of today place three at 1,000+, and more interestingly perhaps no fewer than eight of the top dozen are contributions on stigma. I draw no conclusions from these figures other than the point already made about successive cohorts.
I have checked through my publications, which include 31 books authored, co-authored or edited or co-edited; 100 chapters; and 82 journal articles. Nothing to shout about there. But I also checked how many of these publications were single authorships. The results are: 20 of the 31 books; 68 of the 100 chapters; and 32 of the 82 journal articles. Moreover, I drafted many – over half – of those I published with others. This is of metric and institutional significance I suggest, for all that I have absolutely no regrets.
I recall being advised by one Head of Department at UCL – ok it was lab-based medic (now Sir) Patrick Vallance who was clueless about who I was or what I did – that as a professor at UCL I should bring in a ‘small research grant’ of around £1m and build a research team around me. I ignored this advice naturally. But it’s advice I return to here because I am well aware that my pattern of work and publishing was even at the time unusual, to other social scientists let alone Vallance. I was a solitary worker, given to writing my own largely-theoretical stuff in accordance with my own evolving interests. It was a mode of working that I strove to sustain in what was already an increasingly difficult and somewhat precarious environment. I think it’s a mode of working that is now rapidly disappearing from academia.
For those who can avoid the gathering clouds of cuts and compulsory or voluntary redundancies facing universities undermined by successive UK governments, academic life is almost invariably about metrics of accomplishment and control.
For all that it is representative and paradigmatic only in the STEM disciplines, scanning Google Scholar it is apparent that academics’ metrics prosper more if they are part of large teams. Teams can publish more than solitary writers (and junior members can do the drafting while senior members merely revise and append their names). It is apparent too that some journals count more than others (ie high impact journals), and some types of article count more than others (ie meta-analyses). Checking my own most cited articles I find that two of the four most frequently cited are in ‘The Lancet’, which has a resplendently high impact factor but is of little consequence to sociologists like me.
Returning to the issue of authorship, as a fortunate baby boomer I felt reasonably free – for all that I had occasionally to resist pressures filtering down through and from Heads of Departments – to judge for myself what I wrote about, who if anyone I collaborated with, and where I published. I also fashioned an optimal mode of working and writing, often in cafes and pubs. I entirely recognise that I probably missed out on collaborating more with colleagues, but in my defence I read a lot! My academic life was enlivened by teaching undergraduates, which I loved and miss to this day, and disappearing to write.
The evidence that I enjoyed all this is that I continue to teach, if only intermittently these days, and still have several bouts of writing most weeks, in cafes and – as I write this – in my local pub. I’m glad I was able to manage my career in academia, ‘taking out sufficient insurance’ to keep any intrusive managers off my back and to win time to do what I judged mattered. I appreciate that it’s all changed and changing. Of my publications I have no regrets. Metrics and REFs be damned! What my publications amount to is for others to judge, but they contain what I wanted to say at the time, and I can see how they have evolved and are evolving.
I am greatly encouraged by the talent and application of later cohorts of academic sociologists. But I urge them to resist institutional taming by metrics, whether managed by their institutions or by the likes of journal editors and reviewers increasingly relying on Artificial Intelligence. I appreciate of course that many excellent sociologists employed on short-term contracts, especially in non-Russell Group universities, are needful of an income and are just ‘hanging in there’. But sociology dies if it ceases to ask questions that challenge the status quo. There is very little point in a tamed sociology. Resist, take out what insurance you have to, and continue to ask awkward questions! Sod metrics. Easy to say for a retired baby boomer I know.