How many papers is enough?

An anonymous commentator wrote:

Hi Jane, a few of your posts mention papers you are publishing (yay!)- seems to be quite a few?. I'm interested in how many published papers you feel might be respectable as an annual accomplishment for a junior faculty/postdoc in the UK at a good institution - this is very hard to figure out in my field (ecology/evolution) where I live. I'd like to work in the UK for a while. . . Many thanks if you feel like answering.
January 2010 20:42

I have quite a few papers on the go at any one time, partly because the longer you work in any field the more unfinished bits accumulate, partly because of different collaborations, partly because that's the way I tend to work (lots of things ongoing at any one time). One of tomorrow's jobs is to fill out the StupidStandardisedResearchReview form for 2009, so I might post then on what I've actually done publishing-wise over the last few years.

But what is a respectable number of papers? That's a 'how long is a piece of string' question and no mistake! In the UK context, the RAE (and its replacement the REF) remains a key driver, especially for those seeking faculty jobs (or indeed post-doc positions which run into the census period which is probably sometime in 2012/2013 - given how often the details changed last time, only vague dates make sense at this stage). As best as we know at this point in time, the REF will require submission of four papers per academic for the period 2008-2012 (rumour has it this MAY be reduced to three), therefore your key goal is to produce four excellent papers in the best peer-reviewed outlets you can manage. Metrics, such as h-index, journal citation index and number of times a paper has been cited, are all likely to be looked at by your university if not by the panel, and it appears that the panels will also have expert reviewers read the papers so a cool paper in a non-CNS journal which is sub-field-relevant will not be judged just on its placement.

It would definitely be a Good Thing to be able to name a set of four REF-able papers which are accepted/in press/out by mid-2010 at the latest, although of course you'll continue writing and publishing and aiming to improve your set (remember, papers must be OUT, at least online, by the census date to count in the REF so papers for a December 2012 census date probably have to be submitted by mid-2011, unless your bit of ecology/evolution is faster at processing papers than beach studies! A department will typically want to have a choice of 6 or so REF-able papers from each person, to allow for some strategic selection of papers to support particular narratives about research strengths etc. (and so that co-authored papers aren't submitted twice by the same department - it's OK for both authors to submit them if they're in different departments, but seems to be considered a bit weak if they're both in the same one).

Bearing all this in mind, the minimum goal I work to over a 3-year rolling average is two papers per year in mid-rank or better peer-reviewed journals, one as lead author and one as co-author. Papers in low-rank journals and book chapters are extra to this goal, however research-appropriate and profile-building they are. I also aim to publish in at least 3 different journals over the 3-year period, but my work is quite interdisciplinary so there is no one clear 'best' outlet. I have just about managed that since my second post-doctoral year (in the UK it's rare to publish papers before you've submitted your PhD, so I only really started publishing when I started my post-doc). To biochem and biomed people this is probably horrifically low, and I know friends in some branches of chemistry/materials regard this as very feeble, whilst for some humanities areas it's ambitious. For the muddier, field intensive sciences like beach studies - ecology/geosciences in the broadest sense - this seems to be a realistic target.

What does eveyone else think?