How COVID-19 affected academic publishing: a 3-year study of 17 million research papers

The COVID-19 pandemic induced an unprecedented response from the scientific research community. Previous studies have described disruption of the norms of academic publishing during this time. This study uses an epidemiological statistical toolkit alongside machine-learning methods to investigate the functioning of the scientific information-generation and -consumption ecosystem throughout the pandemic.

A dataset of 17 million scientific research papers that were published between January 2019 and December 2022 was analysed. Data on citations and Altmetrics were harvested, and topic modelling was applied to abstracts. COVID-19-related articles were identified from title text. We investigated publication dynamics, correlations between citation metrics and Altmetrics, rates of publication in preprints, and temporal trends in topics, and compared these metrics in COVID-19 papers vs non-COVID-19 papers.

Throughout 2020-2, 3.7% of English-language research output was on the topic of COVID-19. Journal articles on COVID-19 were published at a consistent rate during this period, while preprints peaked in early 2020 and decreased thereafter. COVID-19 preprints had lower publication rates in the peer-reviewed literature than other preprints, particularly those that were preprinted during early 2020. COVID-19 research received significantly more media and social media attention than non-COVID-19 research, and preprints received more attention, on average, than journal articles, with attention peaking during the initial wave and subsequent peaks corresponding to the emergence of novel variants. COVID-19 articles exhibited a higher correlation between Altmetrics and citation metrics compared with non-COVID-19 publications, suggesting a strong alignment between scientific and public attention.

This study provides a comprehensive description of the rapid expansion of COVID-19 research, revealing evolving research areas and waxing and waning public interest across different topics. Preprints played an important role in disseminating scientific findings, but the level of coverage of preprinted findings emphasizes the need for guidelines in handling preprint research in media, particularly during a pandemic.