Nothing but publishing: the overriding goal of PhD students in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau
基于对90名中国大陆、香港和澳门博士生的质性分析，发现发表压力导致博士生将知识生产商品化，忽视课程、会议和助教工作，视导师为发表助推器、同学为竞争对手，呼吁改革学术评价体系。
Publication pressure is perceived to be filtering down into doctoral education worldwide. We explore the causes and effects of the perceived centrality of publishing among doctoral students, emphasising the impact of publication pressure on students’ identity trajectories. We draw on a qualitative analysis of 90 mainland Chinese doctoral students at universities in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. We find that the credentialisation of publications in the increasingly competitive and publication-dominant academic labour market results in publishing-centred doctoral journeys. Our key finding is that the centrality of publishing affects every aspect of identity trajectory development: it causes doctoral students to commodify knowledge production, devalues coursework, conference participation, and teaching assistantships, encourages students to regard their supervisors as publishing facilitators and their peers as rivals rather than collaborators, and marginalises engagement with external stakeholders. In discussing these dimensions, we emphasise the need for a more comprehensive evaluation of candidates’ abilities and honours in academic recruitment and call for policies to curtail the overemphasis on research output in academic evaluations.