@Brad_Rosenheim @tayfonay @zacchiro @jacobin

Hey Brad,

Don't even get me started about academic administrations having the hired help, I mean, the professors/teachers do more work with the same or less resources.
The main thrust of the article- publish a boatload of stuff to further your career with high impact/h score crap? I'm not in academia, but I do research. The effort to publish in the boutique journals to look as good as possible seems to be backfiring.
I'm seeing more than a few papers published in Science or Nature in my specific field (electrochemistry) that have enough holes to drive a truck through. I doubt that such crap would make it through an electrochem only journal. Seems the publish or perish stuff is overloading reviewers as well.
As far as that article's other thrust- research that’s hewing to "playing it a bit safe”? I think that was always the case. Bigger risks, less of a chance of success. when I was a postdoc at a national lab, getting grant money (as I'm sure is the case broadly) was a case of "here's something novel, but not so novel as to be impossible”, in order to convince the grant reviewers.
One reason I chose the private industry path. Yes, less freedom, but also less hassle when it came to funding. When I reached the point of too much hassle with the higher ups in industry, I started my own company, and I’ve found my company’s investors are a lot easier to convince. Every dog has its fleas.

I think academia and science would benefit from a backing off a bit from quantity/high impact based publish or perish and a focus more on quality, but the way it's going now I don't see that happening. I also think there will always be people like me who say fuck it and choose a path that allows them to do their own thing with less hassle from above. I’ve been an anti-authoritarian troublemaker from the beginning anyway.
In your field, though, doesn't sound like private industry is an option.