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I'd rather do away with the whole publish or perish thing.

One half-baked idea: For academic hiring, only ever judge the quality of a candidate's research based on their five best papers (as they themselves have nominated), then there is no pressure to publish anything that doesn't break into the top five.

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And then someone publishes five good papers and does nothing* for the rest of their life.

I mean, the idea looks nice, but there will always be people trying to game the system.

But don't get me wrong – I still like your idea, I just think it would need some refining (as you yourself admit, ofc).

* As in, no research.

I don’t see a problem with someone publishing 5 great papers early in their career and nothing else. I mean what were the meaningful publications from Oppenheimer in his later years? Or Einstein? Publishing should be done when it matters, not when it’s needed for a salary increase.

"nothing else" really? why would an institution pay them?

in reality, faculty do more than publish, and are also judged by service, supervision, etc.

This would mean that not too exciting results never get published. Just because a topic/finding is not earth-shattering now doesn't mean it isn't useful information for the future.

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