Setting annual publication goals: Getting more research published this year

Nothing about this year can be called “normal” so far, and maybe that’s why I feel like we’re still easing into 2025 (even after several weeks in!). Many of my clients seem to be feeling the same, like disruption and distraction are the new normal. Nevertheless, time keeps on pushing us forward and we want to be sure we’re making empowered choices about how to use it. As a brilliant academic, you want to keep making steady progress in your career and impact even (especially) when things feel stuck or chaotic.

The most effective way to do this is by focusing on your research and publications. As long as “publish or perish” remains a very real thing, a concrete strategy for what you’ll write and submit over the coming months is the best way for you to stay and feel in control of your career.

With that in mind, here's how to develop an achievable publication plan for the year ahead.

Consider Your Unique Context

First, assess your specific situation. Publication expectations vary significantly across institutions. R1 universities typically expect 2–3 quality submissions annually, while teaching-focused institutions might require 1–2 papers per year, or even fewer. Consider your teaching load, administrative duties, and other commitments when setting your targets, and don’t neglect the fact that you’re a human being first and an academic second (more on that below): your health and personal well-being are paramount.

Factor in your career stage as well. Pre-tenure professors often need more publications than their tenured colleagues. If you're approaching tenure review, you'll want to prioritize top-tier journals (TIP: these submissions are where you’ll get the most bang for your buck by hiring a professional, results-oriented editor). I always recommend focusing on quality over quantity, but especially for mid-career professors: by this stage, growing your actual impact is infinitely preferable to padding out your CV. To this end, I don’t just mean developing quality research, which won’t be enough for the biggest journals; they’ll want to see that research communicated in high-quality (i.e., clear and readable) language, which is where many academics might need more time or help than they think.

Build Your Publication Pipeline

A realistic strategy involves maintaining multiple papers at different stages, such as:

• New research projects in development

• Papers in the data collection/analysis phase

• Manuscripts in the actual writing phase

• Papers under review

• Articles in revision

For most academics, aiming to have 3–5 papers in this pipeline at any given time is realistic. This allows for inevitable delays and (much as we aim to avoid them!) rejections while maintaining steady progress. Those working with an editor can increase that number a bit since we’re trading off tasks (e.g., my team and I are implementing some of your reviewer feedback or polishing a new submission while you start on the data collection for two other projects). Project management tools can be incredibly useful here for organizing your projects’ various pieces and deadlines; my team and I use Asana, and I know many academics who use it too.

Set Quarterly Targets

Break down your annual goals into quarterly objectives. Many business academics in the Northern Hemisphere are working to some version of this schedule:

Q1: Research design and data collection

Q2: Initial drafts and conference submissions

Q3: Intensive writing and revisions

Q4: Final submissions and planning for 2026

If this looks similar to your plans too, please reach out to any professional editor that you plan to use as early as you can! Q3 and Q4 availability can be extremely tight for some editors.

Get Real About Day-to-Day Time Management

On the one hand, you’ll want to account for things like teaching, conference attendance, and administrative duties when planning your critically important research and writing outputs. After all, many academics are facing pretty unreasonable expectations about how much they can do in any one of these areas (let alone combined). 

Parkinson's Law

On the other hand, many of these tasks follow Parkinson’s Law: they’ll simply take whatever time you give them. So while this might be somewhat controversial advice, I recommend erring on the side of “realistic but rushed” for virtually every task that isn’t the kind of deep thinking and writing that leads to published research (I recommend this doubly if you’re a woman—research suggests you’re being saddled with more than your fair share of academic service work, so decline what you can and blaze through what you can’t). Those writing and research activities are the main things that should feature consistently in your schedule, even if all you can stick to is 15 minutes each work day.

Keep in mind that a typical paper requires:

• Literature review: 2–3 months

• Data collection/analysis: 3–4 months

• Writing and revision: 2–3 months

• Journal submission process: 3–6 months (minimum)

  
  

Again, some of those numbers will improve if you’re working with an editor (writing and revision can be compressed to weeks or even days, not months). And of course, these phases often overlap across different papers. A goal of 3–4 submissions a year seems to be ambitious but doable for most of our clients (depending on what they already have in their pipeline).

Don’t Forget the Rest of You

Finally, when planning, take a second to zoom out and reflect: what’s going on with you? No really, what does this year hold for you beyond work? An upcoming birth of a child, a sick family member, an unexpected diagnosis or job change—there are a million reasons that your professional goals might need to take a backseat. And that’s totally okay. In fact, “giving up” on grinding so hard can often be the key to unexpected breakthroughs. I’ve worked with dozens of academics who only found the courage to reach out to me in the first place because they were simply facing too many challenges on too many fronts to do it all alone anymore. Three years later, they were back on track, with far more publications than they would have had if they’d never hit that initial wall that forced them to seek help.

Final Thoughts

Above all, as noted, quality matters more than quantity. One well-placed publication in a top journal usually carries more weight than multiple papers in lower-tier outlets. So focus on developing a sustainable research pipeline and consistent writing practice rather than rushing to meet arbitrary targets.

Need help meeting your publication goals? Contact us to learn how we can support your publication strategy this year. We’ve helped hundreds of academics land top-tier publications by turning their valuable insights into polished, high-impact articles for the biggest possible audience.

Wishing you a wonderful and productive rest of the year!