Scholarly productivity of non–pharmacy practice faculty in U.S. schools and colleges of pharmacy, 2019–2023

Purpose: Scholarly productivity is central to academic advancement, institutional benchmarking, and accreditation in pharmacy education. This study evaluated the national scholarly productivity among non-pharmacy practice (NPP) faculty in U.S. schools and colleges of pharmacy and assessed variation in publication output across faculty and nppinstitutional characteristics. Methods: A retrospective bibliometric analysis was conducted between January 2019 and December 2023. Faculty were identified using the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Roster of Faculty and Professional Staff and classified as biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences (BPS) or social and administrative sciences (SAS). Publications were retrieved from Web of Science and characterized by type and scope. Results: The analysis included 1613 NPP faculty from 142 U.S. schools and colleges of pharmacy. The mean annual publication rate was 3.43 ± 4.35 per faculty member (median 2; IQR 0.8-4.6). Publication productivity was skewed, with 15% of faculty producing 50% of all publications. BPS faculty demonstrated higher productivity (median 2.8; IQR 1.0-7.8) than SAS faculty (median 1.8; IQR 0.6-4.2). Original research articles comprised 67.7% of publications, followed by meeting abstracts/proceedings (16.6%) and narrative reviews (8.9%). Most publications were BPS-focused (72.5%), followed by SAS/health economics and outcomes research/clinical trials (25.5%) and scholarship of teaching and learning (2.1%). Increased publication productivity was noted among senior academic ranks, at public institutions, within health science center-affiliated schools, and at institutions offering graduate programs and receiving higher levels of extramural funding. Conclusion: These findings provide contemporary national benchmarks for NPP scholarly productivity and highlight the influence of faculty and institutional characteristics on publication output.