The story of Publish or Perish
Short introduction to my white paper celebrating the 20th anniversary of Publish or Perish: Two decades, dozens of use cases, hundreds of releases, thousands of citations, and millions of users.
This week the Publish or Perish software is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Yes, 20 years!!! When my promotion application at the University of Melbourne was rejected just over 20 years ago, I could never have imagined that this would lead to one of my most significant - and certainly one of my best known - contributions of all: the free Publish or Perish software.
And irony or ironies, this contribution to the academic commons isn't even my own. It was my amazing husband who not only created it in 2006 when I needed to evidence my citation impact, but has continued to add numerous features and data sources over the years. But as he watches academia from a safe distance, he was very happy for me to be the face of it.
Granted I did create a lot of the Publish or Perish training resources - including five books, see Using the Publish or Perish software for the latest 375 page guide - and do take on a large share of the, less technical, user support. I also used the software to do my own bibliometric research and published fifteen articles in the field’s main journals: Scientometrics, Journal of Informetrics, and the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology.
So with PoP's 20-year anniversary, I thought it would be nice to look back to where, why, when, by whom, and how it has been used over the years, and what they would have used if PoP hadn't been around. Join me on a journey through the decades in my white paper: 2006-2026 - The changing usage of Publish or Perish over the years: where, why, when, what, who, and how? If you want to skip to a particular section, just use the Tables of Contents below and it will take you to the relevant section of the white paper.
Table of contents
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Publication details
Harzing, A.W. (2023) Using the Publish or Perish software: Crafting your career in academia, Published by Tarma Software Research Ltd, London, United Kingdom.
- Kindle edition, 445 pp. ISBN 978-1-7394538-4-8.
- Black & white paperback, 375pp. ISBN 978-1-7394538-3-1.
- Black & white hardcover, 375pp. ISBN 978-17394538-5-5.
Update December 2024: The book is now also available as a downloadable PDF from Harzing.com. Purchase of this PDF directly benefits the development of the Publish or Perish software.
Related blogposts
- 2006-2026 - The changing usage of Publish or Perish over the years: where, why, when, what, who and how?
- My academic career: a story in four seasons, eight failures, and four morals
- Inclusive academia (2): Inclusive research evaluation
- Highly cited academics in Business & Management over the years
- Running the REF on a rainy Sunday afternoon: Do metrics match peer review?
- Working with ISI data: Beware of categorisation problems
- The mystery of the phantom reference
Copyright © 2026 Anne-Wil Harzing. All rights reserved. Page last modified on Sun 4 Oct 2026 12:58
Anne-Wil Harzing is Emerita Professor of International Management at Middlesex University, London. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a select group of distinguished AIB members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the scholarly development of the field of international business. In addition to her academic duties, she also maintains the Journal Quality List and is the driving force behind the popular Publish or Perish software program.
