abstract:"Publish or perish" is a phrase coined to describe the pressure in academia to rapidly and continuously publish academic work to sustain or further one's career.
In an open letter, sent to Dutch newspapers to try to explain his actions, he cited the huge pressures to come up with interesting findings that he had been under, in the publishorperish culture that exist in the academic world, which he had been unable to resist, and which led him to his extreme actions.