Scholarly Communications in 2025: An Aerial Evaluation of a System Challenged by AI and Much More - Nicholas - 2026 - Learned Publishing - Wiley Online Library

Abstract:  Using data obtained from the 2025 round of the Harbingers project on early career researchers (ECRs), artificial intelligence (AI) and scholarly communications, we provide an overarching (aerial) analysis of the AI-impacted scholarly communications system. It covers nearly 20 communication aspects, including metrics, peer review, which saw 62 ECRs interviewed from 6 countries and from a range of subjects. To produce such a wide panorama in a single paper the focus is on the interview questions that provided summarisation, codification and quantification of the data. The data was analysed by country, age, gender and subject, where relevant and significant. Quotes are also used to support the quantitative data. There is widespread agreement that citations remain the main reputational currency, that traditional publishing outlets are here to stay, that peer review badly needs fixing and, most importantly, that AI is impacting on a very wide front across the scholarly enterprise. Overhanging it all is the worry that the quality of research output is being undermined, through bad actors and AI ghostwriters. Findings are based on a relatively small, convenience sample, so they should not be regarded as definitive, rather as pointers. Furthermore, an extensive literature review shows that this is a rare study of ECRs.