The Cracks in Today's Academic System — by Jaehyun Lee

The academic system has long served as a pillar of progress. It transformed from informal scholar networks to structured institutions whose standards and outputs have underpinned innovation. Generally speaking, the current system might be the best system for scientific work in the history of human kind.

Current System: Once Superior, Now Strained

In comparison to historical systems that relied on patronage or ecclesiastical approval, today's academic structure—peer-reviewed research, formal journals, funding agencies—represented a substantial leap forward in transparency, structured science, and science as a career.

The Cracks Are Showing

However, this consistency over time has enabled the system to be gamed by bad actors and lead to systemic developments that do not allign with any purpose of the academic system. The “publish or perish” model places overwhelming emphasis on quantity over substance, encouraging superficial studies and fragmentary publications^[1].

Funding cycles resemble planned economies, as researchers bend their topics to funding topics rather than pursue true innovation. Journals act as gatekeepers—large publishers like control access and influence, reinforcing symbolic value over scientific worth^[2].

Peer review, long seen as quality assurance, is overburdened, time-consuming, lacking in transparency, and slow. People have raised concerns over conflict of interest of the Reviewers and some speculation persists of "Quid pro quo" revisions between different groups. Reviewer fatigue is high, with a growing number of invites not resulting in completed thorough reviews^[3].

Human Costs and Devalued Credentials

Working in academia often means lower worker protections, heavy workloads, and limited pay—often worse than industry—further eroding morale. It is further heavily incentivized to not fail a student leading to easier studies. This leads to oversaturation of credentials, weakening the meaning of academic degrees over time^[4].

AI: Accelerating Decline?

Artificial intelligence promises efficiency but may exacerbate dysfunction. A lot of people are already using AI to write or review manuscripts. Often not as a tool but as the lone worker. Authors are now including prompt injection for the case of AI reviews. AI tools enable faster output of low-value or fabricated papers, burdening the system with questionable content, including AI-generated studies and paper-mill submissions^[5].

Systemic Consequences

• Flooded publishing ecosystem: Rapid growth in paper volume strains reviewers and obscures valuable findings^[6].
• Goodhart's Law in action: Metrics like publication count and impact factors lose meaning when they become targets^[7].
• Replication crisis: Researchers avoid negative or replication studies due to publisher bias, distorting the scientific record^[8].
• Predatory publishing boom: Journals that prioritize profit over rigor exploit the desperation to publish, degrading quality and trust^[9].

What Can Be Done?

Reforms must shift incentives from quantity to meaningful quality:

1. Adopt slow-science values, emphasizing thorough, impactful research over rapid output^[10].
2. Rebalance academic rewards away from prestige-based publication toward robust teaching, replication, and societal relevance.
3. Support nonprofit publishing platforms, like SciELO, that resist exploitative APC models^[11].
4. Make peer review more transparent and efficient—through open review, structured guidance, and innovative models that reduce bias^[12].

Limitations of This Overview

This article provides a high-level analysis supported by recent reports and studies but cannot deeply explore each reform's complexities. Impacts vary across disciplines and regions, and cultural or institutional barriers may slow change. Further detail on funding models, labor rights, or AI's evolving role would require topic-specific examination.

Summary

While modern academia once offered unprecedented rigor and opportunity, over time systemic dysfunction—rooted in perverse incentives, exploitative publication practices, and technological shortcuts—has eroded its integrity. Without fundamental reform toward quality, equity, and transparency, scholarly credentials risk losing their value. The time for thoughtful redesign is urgent.

References

1. “Publish or perish”, Wikipedia, updated 2025. Link
2. Vincent Larivière et al., “The Web Will Either Kill Science Journals or Save Them”, Wired, 2015. Link
3. David Adam, “The peer-review crisis: how to fix an overloaded system”, Nature, 2025. Link
4. “Quality of scientific papers questioned as academics ‘overwhelmed' by the millions published”, The Guardian, July 13, 2025. Link
5. “The artificial intelligence revolution in research publishing”, Journal of General Physiology, 2024. Link
6. Michael Park et al., “The deluge of scientific papers”, arXiv, 2023. Link
7. Michael Fire & Carlos Guestrin, “Over-Optimization of Academic Publishing Metrics: Observing Goodhart's Law in Action”, arXiv, 2018. Link
8. “Replication crisis”, Wikipedia, updated 2025. Link
9. “Predatory publishing”, Wikipedia, updated 2025. Link
10. “Slow science”, Wikipedia, updated 2025. Link
11. “Scientific publishing needs urgent reform to retain trust in research process”, The Guardian, July 20, 2025. Link
12. “Open peer review”, Wikipedia, updated 2025. Link