Scholarly communication practices and attitudes of Egyptian junior researchers: An exploratory study

Arab early career researchers (ECRs) are strongly encouraged to actively participate in scholarly communication activities, as it not only enhances their academic standing but also facilitates career advancement and garnering recognition from both the scientific community and the broader public. Nevertheless, the constantly evolving landscape of scholarly communication has imposed significant challenges on researchers. This paper is dedicated to an examination of the scholarly communication practices of early career researchers in Egypt, with the overarching objective of providing insights into the transformations occurring within the scholarly communication framework, particularly within the context of developing nations. In our paper, we employed a quantitative research design to scrutinize the scholarly communication system in Egypt. This endeavor encompassed the distribution of questionnaires to early career researchers hailing from prominent Egyptian universities, resulting in a total of 441 respondents representing various academic institutions across the country. Our analysis revealed that junior scholars predominantly adhere to conventional scholarly methodologies in their research pursuits. This conformity is, in part, attributed to the promotion system in Egypt, which places considerable emphasis on established practices, such as single-author publication, while discouraging the utilization of informal channels for garnering recognition and accolades. The findings of this study furnish us with a more profound comprehension of the prevailing scholarly system in Egypt, which in turn can serve as a foundation for potential system enhancement. It is imperative to acknowledge, however, that this study is not without limitations. The response rate could not be precisely quantified due to the online dissemination of the questionnaires, and the distribution of respondents across diverse scholarly disciplines exhibited significant disparities.