Publish or Perish: Challenges faced by Academicians in Research Publications at the University of Zambia

Abstract

This study was undertaken at the University of Zambia, and had a two-fold focus: to establish challenges faced by academic members of staff in publishing their work in scholarly journals; and to illuminate the factors that can enhance publication output by members of the academe in Zambia. Interviews were conducted with 33 senior lecturers and Deans from the 7 schools. Data was analyzed qualitatively using emerging themes from the participants’ responses. The findings show that lecturers at the University of Zambia were involved in both basic and action research and yet, the publication output was low. Among the challenges identified were lack of research funds, overreliance on western researchers who have their own research agendas, lack of mentorship among young lecturers, lack of visibility of internally generated journals to be used as sources when writing which were mostly hard copies and processing time for some journals was longer than expected.