Quality risks
The analysis of workload (section 5.2.2) showed that 28.5% of respondents often, very often or always have to compromise on the quality of their work (see Figure 48, section 5.2.2). The question now is in which areas scientists and academics compromise on quality when they are forced to do so due to their workload. It turns out that despite the high priority given to research quality, the area in which quality is most often compromised due to heavy workloads is research (see Figure 56). More than 80% of those who regularly have to compromise on quality report this. At the same time, almost 50% feel compelled to compromise on the quality of their teaching and examination duties. By contrast, quality is compromised less often in committee work and academic self-administration. Given that research and teaching are the core tasks and at the same time have a high priority in the academics' own objectives (see Figure 55), this result is quite sobering. It means that the abundance of tasks forces academics to compromise on the quality of precisely those subtasks that are particularly important to them. This can be quite frustrating and, in the long run, demotivating.
Research quality is often defined ex negativo, based on cases of scientific misconduct, retractions of already published articles, or questionable research practices. Although there are proven ways to approach these topics in a survey-based manner (Schneider et al. 2024), respondents in the BSS were not asked to self-assess the quality of their own research. Instead, they were asked about their assessment of their research environment, focusing on practices that indicate quality deficiencies or risks without constituting research misconduct themselves.
Figure 57 shows how often certain practices that reduce quality are observed in the research environment. 20% of respondents observe that publications are submitted that do not meet the necessary quality standards. 18% see submissions of third-party funding applications that lack quality. 26% see that third-party funding applications are not submitted on core research topics. Even if these practices do not per se indicate quality deficiencies, they do point to possible shifts in research strategies, which in turn could pose risks for quality assurance. At the same time, such practices are often also reactions to research policy conditions and incentive structures in research funding. 47.3% of scientists observe that research is being geared towards trendy topics instead of towards a long-term research agenda of their own. This is an indication that scientists have to subordinate a significant part of their research content to research funding and cannot or can only partially follow their own research interests. This is certainly due to the precarious financial situation of research, but it poses two problems: first, intrinsic motivation is at risk of suffering. Second, this strategy obstructs developing and pursuing one's own “longer-term” research agenda and can thus not only harm one's own career but also the advancement of scientific knowledge as a whole.
A comparison of the subject groups reveals small but not insignificant deviations. For example, respondents from the humanities were more likely to report that they perceive quality-reducing practices in their field (see Figure 57). This applies in particular to the “submission of publications despite poor quality”, which 30% of humanities scientists report, but only around 20% of representatives of other subjects. Quality deficiencies in the submission of third-party funding proposals are also observed somewhat more frequently in the humanities. Whether this is due to higher quality expectations, higher competition in the field and among colleagues (see Figure 21) and the associated more critical or even begrudging eye with which colleagues' work is viewed cannot be determined here. Another possibility is that quality assurance practices are less likely to be practiced in day-to-day research, which will be considered in section 6.3.
The correlations with the four predominant work cultures are significantly stronger than with the subject groups. Quality-reducing practices are observed significantly less frequently in the context of cultures characterised by high cooperation and low competition (see Figure 58). They are observed somewhat more frequently in the context of high cooperation and strong competition, but significantly more frequently in the low-cooperation contexts. Relying on fashionable topics and submitting publications despite a lack of quality apparently occurs most frequently in the work culture with little cooperation and strong competition. Fortunately, this work culture is less widespread, with only 10% of respondents working in this culture (see Figure 26), while the work culture with high cooperation and low competition, which performs significantly better here, is represented by 50% of respondents.
