Let us not beat around the bush: scientific research, particularly the social conduct of research, is in crisis. The appalling increase of dishonesty, deception, and loss of integrity flaring up around us are unmistakable signs that research has entered a phase of social disintegration. The erosion, the flaunting and open attack on social norms that were taken for granted is a conspicuous part of this process.
In scientific research there is an unwritten code of conduct for citing sources in one’s own work: anyone who uses the work of colleagues must also cite those works to disclose the origin of the facts, theories, and ideas that were used. Which sources a researcher uses is entirely up to them. Yet, overlooking or ignoring important findings can turn into a liability, since one’s own studies would then fail to connect with the current state of knowledge, and colleagues would in turn be less likely to use them.
Many scientists carefully track how often their work is cited by colleagues, for good reason: frequent citation of one’s research unambiguously demonstrates its reuse and recognition, and can contribute significantly to career advancement. By contrast, anyone whose works, even years into their career, are hardly ever cited or reviewed, cannot realistically entertain hope for tenure or promotion. Moreover, reading a colleague’s new paper in one’s specialty—a field in which one has invested years of effort to establish a profile—only to discover that one is not cited a single time, can easily feel like a personal slight.
Even if no intent can be proven in such cases, the search for possible causes inevitably begins. But to seriously consider the possibility that one’s own work might be inadequate or insignificant would pose a grave threat to self-esteem. Those who identify as belonging to a historically marginalized or disadvantaged group can and often do avoid such a painful attribution by assuming a diffuse external discrimination against them based on their group membership. Social psychology studies show that especially those who perform poorly in experimental competitions are most convinced that their results have nothing to do with their own performance. It is also they who espouse greater redistribution of rewards. In academic research, citations have long been recognized as a key element of the reward system. Would it surprise you to hear that some researchers want to redistribute your citations?
Concerned American researchers have found that in neuroscience, the work of women is cited less frequently than their share of publications would suggest, whereas the opposite holds true for men.1 They attribute this to “systemic and individual bias,” referring to the discredited research on implicit bias. To counter this disparity, the Citation Diversity Statement was invented.2 This is a paragraph included in scientific publications that numerically describes the diversity of the cited authors. According to its creators, diversity should not be limited to gender but must also encompass race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability, and other unspecified dimensions of difference. A citation diversity statement can look like this example from Ray et al.:3
We are committed to promoting intellectual and social diversity in science and academic scholarship and took this commitment into consideration while researching and writing this article. We actively worked to promote diversity in our reference list while ensuring all the references cited were relevant and appropriate. We have included some references to enhance diversity but have not omitted any references for this purpose. To assess the diversity of our references, we obtained the predicted gender of the first and last author of each reference by using a database that stores the probability of a first name being carried by a woman (gender-api.com). Using this measure and removing self-citations, our references contain 30% woman(first)/woman(last), 11% man/woman, 15% woman/man, and 44% man/man.
It would be unwise to dismiss this initiative as yet another proposal for self-censorship by left-authoritarian academics. There is more to it. Many journals already support this movement and encourage scientists to include citation diversity statements. The consequences of failing to comply with this request or of providing diversity numbers that do not match what editors expect, are not hard to guess. Anyone wishing to publish in these journals must conform preemptively to these expectations.
The implication is clear: it is no longer sufficient to cite only what one has found useful, relevant, or worth criticizing. Reference lists must also meet extra-scientific requirements, whose acceptance and observance signal belonging to the group that presents itself as morally infallible. The journal Science welcomes “statements pertaining to diversity and inclusion within a manuscript’s acknowledgments section” in which authors may advertise their group membership.
The once valid code of rejecting particularism as a guiding principle in science promulgated by Robert Merton, and the norm implicit in it—that citation should be based solely on scholarly relevance—is thereby turned upside-down. Works are no longer cited only for their content. It is openly demanded that authors be cited because of their gender, race, or sexual orientation. Dworkin, Zurn, and Bassett explicitly call for “affirmative action” in citation practices to be made official policy in research groups and journal editorial boards.4 Note that the point is not that all researchers should be cited equally and impartially based on the significance of their publications. That was the old practice now slated for replacement.
Many scientists eagerly embrace this way of guided thinking, hoping that a Citation Diversity Statement will deflect possible accusations of bias and show their alignment with the “right-minded.” Yet, this remains a fringe movement, for now. Most American scientists strongly endorse the position that researchers ought to “deliberately ignore” authors’ gender and race when deciding on which research to cite.5 Citing works because of their authors’ social category remains largely anathema, except, according to Bruton and colleagues, for arts and humanities scholars.
A second insincerity of the citation diversity movement lies in that it does not outright reject careerism by means of citation counts. Instead, some want to exploit this questionable practice by channeling advantages to members of preferred groups through manipulated citation lists, thereby helping these groups compete for recognition, positions, and power over their perceived adversaries. This reveals a cynical view of the social system of science, one in which the pursuit of truth is absent and prejudice is touted as a weapon for political struggle in a general culture war of which science has become another arena.
The absurdity of this proposed solution, citation diversity statements, to supposed injustices is that, as in the case of affirmative action in admissions and hiring, one alleged practice of hidden discrimination is countered with another, overt discrimination. This makes the hypothesis of systemic discrimination appear even less plausible. In fact, there is evidence that alienation from the scientific reward system can lead to deviant behavior, such as particularism.6
Once the door has been opened to such blatant and overt ideological attacks on scientific integrity, it is only a matter of time before tenure applications and funding proposals are rejected because their authors’ reference lists fail to meet diversity standards. Before long, someone will point out that the most prestigious journal in a field does not reflect the demographic composition of the scholarly community in its author pool and will demand reserved article quotas for certain groups. What will publishers and editors do when they get accused of racism, sexism, Islamophobia, homophobia? They will cave in.
If this development continues to advance, the outcome may unfold along these lines: the already fragile state of academic freedom will further erode. The movement is likely to deepen divisions and tensions among the groups it sets in opposition. Over time, publicly funded research—once regarded as a cornerstone of shared progress—may lose some of its credibility and broad support, increasingly viewed not as a pursuit of knowledge but as a system shaped by political or ideological considerations.
Harry Haufele is an experienced social science researcher located in Europe. He prefers to use a pseudonym due to a politically uncertain social environment.
1 J.D. Dworkin et al., The Extent of Drivers of Gender Imbalance in Neuroscience, Nature Neuroscience, 23, no. 8 (2020): 918-926.
2 P. Zurn, D.S. Bassett, N.C. Rust, “The Citation Diversity Statement: A Practice of Transparency, a Way of Life,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24, no. 9 (2020): 669-672.
3 K.S. Ray et al., “Citation Bias, Diversity, and Ethics,” Accountability in Research, 31, no. 2 (2024): 158-172.
4 J. Dworkin et al., “(In)citing Action to Realize an Equitable Future”, Neuron, 106, no. 6 (2020): 890-894.
5 S.V. Bruton et al., “Citation Ethics: An Exploratory Survey of Norms and Behaviors, Journal of Academic Ethics, 23, no. 2 (2025): 329-346.
6 J.M. Braxton, “Deviancy from the Norms of Science: The Effects of Anomie and Alienation in the Academic Profession,” Research in Higher Education 34 (1993): 213-228.
Photo by J Bettencourt/peopleimages.com on Adobe Stock