Hyper prolific authors in environmental sciences: Productivity pays

Prof. Brian Nosek wrote that there is no cost to getting things wrong, the cost is not getting them published. Recent years have seen the rise of hyper prolific scientists who publish an abnormally high volume of scientific articles, frequently at a rate significantly higher than their fellows. Although there is a general view that productivity is a favourable trait, overly productive researchers may raise questions about the quantity, calibre, and impact of their work. To be aware of the potential risks and unfavourable effects of generating an overly large number of publications, it is crucial to carefully assess the work of scientists who are hyper prolific. Since there hasn't been any research on this topic on environmental sciences, this study performed a comprehensive survey of 931,027 articles published in 2013-2022 in Environmental Sciences journals to to investigate the very prolific authors in this field. The findings show that some authors are extremely prolific, publishing an average of 50–100 publications each year. Furthermore, a tight network of scientists with a remarkable number of highly cited papers is revealed by network analysis. In order to ensure that the process of publishing a paper is carried out honestly and that vested interests do not jeopardize the advancement of knowledge, it is decided that the scientific community has to adopt ethical norms and procedures regarding the number of publications. Publications should encourage openness, transparency, and reproducibility.