Researcher-Land: Myth or reality?

Aspiring researchers can learn necessary skills from massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by many initiatives, such as AuthorAID, UK. Photo: TBS

"Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and think what nobody has thought" --Dr Albert Szent-Gyorgyi.

1937 Nobel laureate Dr Albert Szent-Gyorgyi's brilliant quote separates researchers from the rest of humanity. In addition to thinking differently, researchers, through their research, also tell the world something 'new' that nobody knew before. So, as a human being, a researcher can be a citizen of one or more countries. But as 'researchers' they are citizens of a whole different world — I want to call it 'Researcher-Land!'

Let's have a quick peek inside Researcher-Land. Although it is made up of countless geographically, ideologically, institutionally, and philosophically isolated groups, they all follow some basic norms, standards, and practises. For example, they all have to do new, quality research as a part of their responsibilities, or, to be a bit blunt, to earn a living and sometimes prestige and positions as well. 

But, it is not enough to simply discover a new method to treat Alzheimer's or find a better way to reduce gender-based violence in Dhaka's slums. Researchers must communicate their findings in a thesis or a journal article, in a press conference or a scientific event, or by uploading a YouTube video. Some research groups sometimes set their own, additional sub-rules reflecting their culture, values, and understanding. But that does not stop them from being part of a wider nation called Researcher-Land.

Researcher-Land's culture is an amazing mix of tradition and new. Traditionally, for example, the elders of a research team used to exclusively mentor the young ones to become competent researchers. We now see host institutions formally train the young recruits on how to design and successfully do research, how to publish the results, and what ethical issues to consider along the way.

An aspiring researcher can also learn these skills from massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by many initiatives, such as AuthorAID, UK. Researchers can also learn from each other through 'journal clubs' where researchers from the same disciplines virtually discuss research articles, similar to the concept of book clubs. But mentoring, be it virtual or in-person, remains crucial for early-career researchers.

The economy of Researcher-Land runs on its sole workforce, the researchers, continuously conducting and publishing new research. Given the inherent, closed nature of this 'knowledge production system', the same researchers may wear different hats at different times.

Sometimes they can be applicants for research funding and sometimes they can be evaluators or monitors of others' research. Sometimes they are the authors of their own research articles; sometimes they are the peer-reviewers of others' research papers, as well as editors, even publishers of academic journals.

Despite its closed nature, Researcher-Land's progress and growth are too often shaped by others ― governments, research funders, business entities and even university administrators, who are not the citizens of Researcher-Land. 

They can undermine science by promoting misinformation and lying, as we saw during Donald Trump's presidency; declare "war on science" as former President Bolsonaro did in Brazil; shape the research agenda by directing fund flow as was seen during the Covid-19 pandemic; or hardly allocate money to research as the University of Dhaka regularly does ― for example, only 1.63% of the Tk922.48 crore budget of 2022–23 is for research grants. Over the last few years, research publishing in Bangladesh has increasingly been dictated by global university rankings, discussions on which often swamp our mainstream and social media.

Researcher-Land is also challenged by many other factors, some of which have cascading effects. Let's take a reading of the published research as an example. Common sense suggests that knowledge created through any research should be free for all to read and use. And historically, it was more or less like that. 

But, it is fascinating to see how academic publishing has become an extremely profitable multi-billion-dollar industry over the last few decades. For example, in 2022, Elsevier, the biggest scientific journal publisher, had a revenue of $3.6 billion with a 38% profit margin ― more than that of Amazon, Apple, or Google.

A significant part of this revenue is generated from journal subscription fees, which universities around the world pay in billions of dollars so that their researchers can read those journals. Not having enough money, developing countries like Bangladesh fail to do the same; thus, literally thousands of journals are always hidden from us.

To improve this long-standing problem, two things happened in the last two decades. First, global projects like Research4Life are making hundreds and thousands of journal articles worth $48 million annually, freely accessible to researchers in about 130 low- and middle-income countries. More than 480 institutions from Bangladesh are enjoying this service, making us the third largest beneficiary in the world, only after Nigeria and Nepal.

Second, the 'Open Access' journal gives the publishers a different business model, where the authors or their institutions pay a publication fee in advance so that anyone can read and download these research papers from the journal websites for free.

But the open access model, with its staggering $2 billion in annual global revenue, has a downside. The publication fees, also known as Article Processing Charges (APCs), of good journals can be around $2,500 per article and can go as high as $10,000. It means if a piece is 5000 words long, to publish one word, the authors have to pay $0.50 to $2! Just for comparison, in today's world, a person is considered extremely poor if they earn less than $2.15 a day.

Such financial challenges are pushing researchers from poorer countries to fall into the trap of 'predatory journals'. Such journals publish research articles in exchange for a couple hundred dollars without following basic publication standards, such as peer review and editorial quality control.

As a result, despite spending many months doing a piece of research and spending hundreds of dollars, our researchers get their names on articles that are rejected by reputed authorities, thus tarnishing their careers for good. Therefore, although the citizens of Researcher-Land are bonded by knowledge creation, economic inequality among their countries and institutions is keeping them apart.

Since the fate of Researcher-Landers depends so much on many external factors, can Researcher-Land be called an independent entity? Or is the universal togetherness of researchers just a romantic idea?

Like any society or country on earth, Researcher-Land has to depend on outsiders, here in the form of policymakers, funders, publishers, and users of research. But, rest assured, such dependency will not make Researcher-Land vulnerable as long as its citizens are ideologically and functionally strong enough to face existing and anticipated challenges.

Recent movements for universal open access to all research highlight an urge to go (or to return) to a condition that is right and justified, that is, to consider access to all new research as a human right. Researchers from Bangladesh should also join the global conversations on improving open access, which include removing barriers like excessive APCs and reducing the profit margins of the big journal publishers.

But researchers shouldn't stop there. They urgently need to focus on the use of the research they do and the impact it creates. We are too often bogged down in the reputation of the journals where we publish our research in the name of 'Journal Impact Factor' and flood social media by patting ourselves on the back. 

We need to start focusing on the 'on-the-ground impacts' of our research by communicating it to policymakers and practitioners using the right words and tones and convincing them to use our findings for societal well-being, and taking our research outside the beautiful pages of academic journals.

In Bangladesh, we can brilliantly do that by showing how our research has been contributing to achieving 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) since 2016—by ensuring food security, improving gender equality, and adapting to the climate crisis, for example.

Researcher-Land is not a myth built on some vague constructs. It is rather a naturally evolved society glued together by the creation of and access to knowledge. They are also connected by the 'legacy of knowledge'. Throughout time, by conducting a piece of research, each researcher has added a piece of stone to build the path of knowledge, a path that is leading us towards global good.

Dr Haseeb Md. Irfanullah is an independent consultant working on environment, climate change, and research system. Haseeb tweets as @hmirfanullah

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.