Abstract:

Over the last two decades, the advent of the knowledge society has led to a growing centrality of knowledge and its production. In the higher education context, this has been increasing attention and importance in the ways of disseminating knowledge, mainly materialized in the publications of academics. Indeed, the number and, above all, the quality of these publications has become a powerful indicator on which crucial aspects of the higher education systems and institutions functioning are increasingly supported, namely: academic staff appraisal; academic career access and progression; external evaluation of higher education; or even the assessment and funding of research. This has introduced increasing pressure on academics for publication, in such a way that it is possible to speak of an 'ideal' model of academic as someone compelled to privilege research and the publication of its results over teaching or other activities (extension, for example) and, mostly, to publish in top-ranked international journals (Lund, 2012), typically in English. However, not all academics are able to achieve or even willing to pursue this ideal, allowing to speak of a diversity of profiles. Aiming to shed some light on the publication profiles of academics, as well as the variables eventually shaping them, a study was conducted based on the Portuguese context. A quantitative analysis (using descriptive, multivariate and bivariate statistics) was developed based on the publications reported by academics from all the Portuguese higher education institutions (university and polytechnic institutions, public and private), holding a PhD degree (N=15,420). The combination of a set of variables linked to academics (e.g. institutional context; career position; professional path; governance and management experience; research activity; and external activity) and the types of their publications (national and international books, chapters, articles, proceedings) and artistic activity, allowed to identify 6 publication profiles:
(1) the national authors;
(2) the non-publishers;
(3) the international authors;
(4) the editors;
(5) the travelers; and
(6) the artists.

So, it seems evident that the pressure of the ‘publish or perish’ aphorism is leading Portuguese academics to develop different publication profiles. However, there are two apparently antagonistic profiles clearly emerging as more representative - the non-authors (i.e. academics with a low publication level) and the international authors (academics with a high level of international articles). This suggests not only a tendency for the bipolarization of publication profiles, but also that academics are differently responding to the same pressures raised by the knowledge society over higher education and research.

Keywords:

Research, publication, publication profiles, academics, Portugal.