Scholarly Productivity Pre-tenure and Post-tenure Among Non-Pharmacy Practice Faculty in US Schools and Colleges of...

To evaluate scholarly productivity before and after tenure among non-pharmacy practice (NPP) faculty in US schools and colleges of pharmacy and to assess whether changes in scholarly productivity following tenure vary across faculty demographic and institutional characteristics.

This retrospective bibliometric analysis included tenured NPP faculty who achieved tenure between 2014 and 2023. Publication productivity was assessed using Web of Science records during the 5 years preceding tenure and the post-tenure period through December 31, 2024, excluding the tenure year. Publication counts were annualized to account for differences in post-tenure observation periods. Pre- and post-tenure productivity were compared overall, across faculty and institutional characteristics, and by publication type using Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank tests.

A total of 234 tenured NPP faculty members from 41 US schools and colleges of pharmacy were included. Mean annualized publication productivity increased from 3.5 ± 2.9 publications per faculty member per year before tenure to 4.5 ± 3.8 after tenure (median 3 vs 3.4). Increases were observed across most faculty demographic and institutional characteristics examined. Original research articles accounted for the largest share of scholarly output and increased from a mean of 2.2 ± 1.8 to 3.3 ± 3.1 publications per faculty member per year (median 1.8 vs 2.3).

Publication productivity among NPP faculty in US schools and colleges of pharmacy increased following tenure, driven primarily by original research publications. These findings challenge concerns that publication productivity declines after tenure; however, the observational study design does not permit attribution of the observed increase to tenure itself.