Madam, the university facultymembers are the mainelements of education andresearch. The faculty memberis not just an informationprovider or a teacher but theyhave many other rolesincluding facilitation,assessment, curriculum andcourse planning and resourcedevelopment. In addition tothe multidimensional roles offaculty members of healthprofessional institutes, asuccessful academic career offaculty members in medicalinstitutes also depends onresearch participation andscholarly activity.1 Theexpectations from facultymembers to participate inresearch has increased forover half a century to anextent that it has become themost dominant and often themain criterion forappointment, tenure, upgradation and promotion atinstitutions of highereducation. Faculty incentiveand reward system depends alot on research activities because most facultymembers and administrators support the belief thatresearch promotes teaching2 but there are others whochallenge it.3 Publication rates are a vital measure ofindividual and institutional performance that's whyAcademics are expected to publish. One of the mainfactor for promoting research is the intenserequirement of university administrators to havefaculty members with high national rankings. Another

important factor is the increasing dependence ofuniversities on external research funding to supportbasic operations.4,5 Due to this pressure, the researchactivities of faculty members are increased, not only atresearch universities but also at institutions withteaching as their primary mission, but they encounternumerous barriers to perform good quality researchincluding few human resources, limited budget, andpoor facilities that has also been reported in literature.6A survey was conducted to explore the barriers andmotivators towards research among faculty membersof undergraduate programmes of allied healthsciences.7 The most frequent barrier was found to belack of time. The participation in scholarly activity was

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Publish or Perish: What can reinforce faculty to participate in scholarly activity?Safa Pervaiz Vasir,1 Syed Amir Gilani,2 Muhammad Sikander Ghayas Khan,3 Rabia Azmat4

1King Edward Medical University, Lahore, 2University of Lahore, 3RiphahInternational University, Rawalpindi, 4Nur International University, Lahore.Correspondence: Safa Pervaiz Vasir. Email: binte_pervaiz@hotmail.com

Figure: The barriers and motivators towards research among faculty members of allied health sciences of public and privateuniversities in Punjab, Pakistan.

also reported to be affected because faculty memberslack the required skills and qualification for conductinga research. As a consequence of above mentionedconstraints 63% of the respondent faculty members didnot have any research publications and 9.3%respondents were not interested in research at all. Onthe other hand, the most reported motivator to beactively publishing and producing research was careeradvancement. In addition academicians also inclinedtowards research as they were encouraged by themanagement and administrators of universities butconversely the teachers also reported lack of supportfrom the higher administration. It is recommended thatthe gaps and barriers identified by study participantsshould be rectified through effective interventions.Research training should be made compulsory duringundergraduate as well as postgraduate degreeprogrammes. In addition, faculty members should beallocated specific time for research activities as well asfor participation in research training workshops. Furtherresearch is required at a larger scale that look at thequality of research training and output resulting from it.

References1. Aurora Denial OD, Elizabeth Hoppe OD. A review of faculty

perceptions, barriers and resources related to scholarlyproductivity. Optometric Education 2012; 38: 20-32.

2. Marsh HW, Hattie J. The relation between researchproductivity and teaching effectiveness: Complementary,antagonistic, or independent constructs? J Higher Educ 2002;73: 603-41.

3. Zaman MQ. Review of the academic evidence on the relationshipbetween teaching and research in Higher Education. London:Department for Education and Skills; 2004.

4. Nejatizadeh A, Sarnayzadeh M, Kahnouji K, Ghasemi R, NakhodaeiN. Constraining Factors of Research among faculty members atHormozgan University of Medical Sciences. Electronic Physician2016; 8: 2405.

5. Safavi Z. Barriers to research from the perspective of facultymembers of knowledge and information science: a case study ofPublic Universities in Tehran. Collnet J Scientometrics InformationManagement 2014; 8: 281-91.

6. Pager S, Holden L, Golenko X. Motivators, enablers, and barriers tobuilding allied health research capacity. J Multidiscip Health 2012;5: e9.

7. Pervaiz S. Barriers and Motivators Towards Research AmongFaculty Members of Allied Health Sciences of Public And PrivateUniversities In Punjab, Pakistan [Internet]. Ijrs.org. 2017 [Cited30 December 2017]. Available from URL:http://www.ijrs.org/ojs/index.php/IJRS/article/view/41.

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