Are prolific authors too much of a good thing? Dominant authors can lead to an imbalance of power within an evidence base

摘要

According to a linked article by Holleman and colleagues, diabetes research is dominated by a few dozen prolific researchers. They examined randomised controlled trials of glucose lowering drugs published in the 20 years up to 2013, and found that roughly a third of reports were published by less than 1% of authors. The most prolific individuals were named on seven trial reports, on average, every year for the last 10 years. Holleman and colleagues' study did not determine how many separate trials were reported by these articles, but even assuming that large trials generate several publications, they found that some authors had an extraordinary output. In a similar study of prolific authors, the 10 most productive in each of four medical specialties were named on at least one publication per 10 working days each year, showing that the issue is not restricted to diabetes research.