ArticlePLoS biology2018
Assessing scientists for hiring, promotion, and tenure.
Article in PLoS biology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 126 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
126 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Automatically listing senior members of departments as co-authors is highly prevalent in health sciences: meta-analysis of survey research.Scientific reports · 2024Pooled it
- Honorary authorship is highly prevalent in health sciences: systematic review and meta-analysis of surveys.Scientific reports · 2024Pooled it
- Challenges and solutions for the promotion of medical sciences faculty members in Iran: a systematic review.BMC medical education · 2022Pooled it
- Reproducibility in biomedical research.Nature medicine · 2026Review
- TOP 2025: An update to the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines.Research integrity and peer review · 2026Article
- Motivations and barriers to engaging in peer review: a qualitative study.Research integrity and peer review · 2026Article
- Highlighting Rigor, Reproducibility, and Transparency of Research in an Academic CV.Clinical and translational science · 2026Article
- Beyond genuine collaboration: the rise of strategic co-authorship in contemporary academic publishing.Research integrity and peer review · 2026Article
- Amplifying signal-to-noise: Responsible use of large language models in radiology publishing.Clinical imaging · 2026Article
- Resilience and Recalibration of Bibliometric Indicators in Neurosciences and Neuropharmacology Journals After COVID-19: A Longitudinal Rate of Change Analysis Using Mixed-Effects Models.Current neuropharmacology · 2026Article
- Global integration, local constraints: how internationalized scientific development shapes early-career research in Latin America.Frontiers in sociology · 2026Article
- Gendered male and high-income country authors dominate publication at a One Health research organization.PloS one · 2026Article
- Maintaining quality of scientific peer-review and publishing inPhysics and imaging in radiation oncology · 2026Article
- AI competency misalignment in preventive medicine: a multi-stakeholder survey with latent profile analysis in Sichuan and Chongqing.International journal of public health · 2026Article
- A survey of how biology researchers assess credibility when serving on grant and hiring committees.PeerJ · 2026Article
- Germany in pharmacology publishing: 192 articles with 1367 citations in Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives vs. 16,775 articles with 274,225 citations elsewhere.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2025Article
- Anti-science and the science community.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2025Article
- How Can Research Have Greater Beneficial Impact in Rural Australia?The Australian journal of rural health · 2025Article
- Ending publication bias: A values-based approach to surface null and negative results.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Beyond the Publication-Equivalent: Rethinking research impact metrics.The Indian journal of medical research · 2025Article
66 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Assessment of researchers is necessary for decisions of hiring, promotion, and tenure. A burgeoning number of scientific leaders believe the current system of faculty incentives and rewards is misaligned with the needs of society and disconnected from the evidence about the causes of the reproducibility crisis and suboptimal quality of the scientific publication record. To address this issue, particularly for the clinical and life sciences, we convened a 22-member expert panel workshop in Washington, DC, in January 2017. Twenty-two academic leaders, funders, and scientists participated in the meeting. As background for the meeting, we completed a selective literature review of 22 key documents critiquing the current incentive system. From each document, we extracted how the authors perceived the problems of assessing science and scientists, the unintended consequences of maintaining the status quo for assessing scientists, and details of their proposed solutions. The resulting table was used as a seed for participant discussion. This resulted in six principles for assessing scientists and associated research and policy implications. We hope the content of this paper will serve as a basis for establishing best practices and redesigning the current approaches to assessing scientists by the many players involved in that process.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.