Are We Heading Toward “Demonetization” of Scientific Journals?

Journal articles have become the "currency" for not only appraising individual academic faculty but also ranking of educational institutions and universities at both the national and international levels. As the unhealthy competition is getting sharper, there is huge pressure to publish in "high impact" journals. This has driven an increasing number of unethical publication practices ranging from questionable acts of "salami-sliced" papers, redundant publications, gift and ghost authorships, and plagiarism to more serious deviant publication behaviors such as data fabrication and falsification. 1 An increasing number of stakeholders with profit motives have also entered the fray. These include, but are not limited to, an ever increasing pool of "open access" publishers charging exorbitant amounts from the authors as article processing charges (APCs). This conflict of interest can influence the owners of open access journals to overlook quality in the rush for quantity to generate revenue. The advent of players facilitating paper mills has amplified all types of unethical publication practices manifold. 2 The estimated global revenue of paper mills is 1 billion Euros and perhaps more with middlemen advertising 800 for a paper in mid-tier journals. 3 The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) will make things more complex at each end. AI will give a fillip to paper mills and to the exponentially increasing number of journals spawning in an environment of commercial interests. At the journal's end, to cope with the barrage of AI-generated papers, AI tools for editing will play an increasing role. The soul of scientific publication will get buried under the heap of inane papers. Where is this academic anarchy leading to? Due to these unscrupulous practices, the published papers are turning into "counterfeit currency. " The only way out of this academic mess is "demonetization" of published papers as "currency" in the professional and institutional rat race. It is time to go back to basics. Teaching should be preferred over research in academic institutions. 4 It is time for "demonetization" (pun intended) of scientific journals. Once publications lose academic currency, the quantity of papers will come down, but the quality of research will improve. This will be in the interest of science and humanity, which will benefit from good research. Good research does not emerge from unhealthy competition, commercial interests, or various other conflicts of interest. Data availability statement Not applicable. Author contribution AB was responsible for the concept, writing, revising and final approval of the editorial.