Korkeila J

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Downloaded By: [Korkeila, Jyrki] At: 05:53 8 November 2007 EditorialAttention, impact and the economy of scienceScience has become an industry of information-mak-ing, but the research of science as a form of industryis still in its infancy. Science can be viewed as a highlyspecialized form of market economy, where informationis exchanged to attention. The value of scientifichypotheses, observations and theories is comparable tocapital in other economies. The market of scienceregulates the margins within which the researchers tryto maximize the attention they get in the eyes of theircompetitors and authorities (1). In regular economiesmarkets remove capital from unprofitable enterprises.Inefficient use of resources is harmful for the promotionof science in as much as it is hazardous for other formsof business.The impact factor (IF) may be compared to e.g. Dow-Jones of the New York Stock Exchange as a high IF isliable to increase new scientific investments, i.e. submis-sions of papers, in the hope of the place in the sun.Having many published papers in high-ranked journalswill have direct and indirect consequences in one‘scareer; the possibilities of gaining a position or receivinggrants. Doing research on an untrendy subject might behazardous to one‘s future. An untrendy subject comeswith a risk of low level of current citations, whereas astudy on a hot and trendy subject like genetics is liable toattract attention despite the fact that the clinicalsignificance of the results could be the opposite. As theIF ranks journals and gives a higher rating to generaljournals than specialist journals, there is a higher like-lihood of being noticed and cited on the basis of generalinterest rather than clinical interests in a special field ofmedicine. The IF is insensitive to clinical significanceand usefulness of the information. The IF may thus haveinadvertent consequences in shifting research interestsfrom one subject to another. As such, this is not aninherently negative fact, but does the IF provideadequate tools for deciding what is worthy of scientificinterest or not?In practice IF is among the factors influencing choiceof topic of research interest. This may be a reason forconcern here as demand for high impact may divertscience by placing increasing interest in areas, where it ispossible to carry out research very quickly. The IFcannot be used for comparisons of quality of productionbetween fields of science, because ‘‘judgment is onlypossible if there is no appreciable subdivision of researchpractices’’ (2). Within a field the average number ofcitations depends simply on the average number ofreferences. The highest ranking scientific journal inmathematics has an IF comparable to the 51st in cellbiology. This is no evidence of quality difference, butreflects the fact that mathematical papers usually includea small number of references. The value of IF is inassessing the relative importance of papers published inone journal compared with those published in anotherjournal of similar content (3).There are clearly subdivisions of research practicesbetween molecular biology and psychiatry, to be moreprecise, say, between research in functional proteomicsand psychotherapy outcome. It would be preposterousto make a comparison statement of quality of sciencebased on the IF. Furthermore, taking into considerationthe huge science market of the USA that accounts for50% of all research within psychiatry and 65% of thecitation impact, the IF also is a function of the economyof quantity (4). Such an economy of masses  herenumber of global citations  cannot be reached bystudies that may have a large local importance within theNordic countries. Thus, use of the IF as a means to guidefunding may ultimately dislocate psychiatric research, ifthe interests of Nordic health services are not taken intoaccount adequately. Geographical subdivisions of re-search interests should be considered as well as subdivi-sions of research practices when ranking scientificproductions of researchers. Patients, their next of kinand the services, however, cannot be outsourced.It is of interest that before the Second World WarNobel prizes were granted more commonly to Europeanthan American scientists. In his report to the presidentof the USA in 1945, Vanever Bush proposed that thefederal government should support basic scientificresearch in all natural sciences including biomedicine(5). He considered these as a first, necessary steptowards a healthy economy. This led to an immediateorganization of the NIH. Currently, we see how well thegolden flower of biomedical research has been culti-vated. Should we consider whether the IF is to be used asthe only currency to attract investments in the form ofsubmissions?Jyrki Korkeila(acting) professor of psychiatryFinnish national editor of the Nordic Journal of PsychiatryPsychiatric Department, University of TurkuKunnallissairaalantie 20, 20700 Turku, FinlandHarjavalta hospital, the Hospital district of SatakuntaFinlandjyrki.korkeila@pp.inet.fi# 2007 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/08039480701714406Downloaded By: [Korkeila, Jyrki] At: 05:53 8 November 2007 References1. Franck G. The scientific economy of attention: a novel approach tothe collective rationality of science. Scientometrics 2002;/55:/326.2. Kokko H, Sutherland WJ. What do impact factors tell us? TrendEcol Evol 1999;/14:/3824.3. Brown H. How impact factors changed medical publishing  andscience. BMJ 2007;/334:/5614.4. Ingwersen P. Visibility and impact of research in psychiatry forNorth European countries in EU, US and world contexts. Sciento-metrics 2002;/54:/13144.5. Palade GE. Tides of genius. In: Pfenninger KH, Shubik VR, editors.The origins of creativity. New York: OUP; 2004. pp. 14558.EDITORIAL322 NORD J PSYCHIATRY VOL 61 NO 5 2007

Attention, impact and the economy of science

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Attention, impact and the economy of science

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