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This question is about real situation and I do not say anything about the field of research or any name. Also, I do not have any special opinion. I just want to say a real story and know the experts idea about this subject. Also, maybe someone experienced same situation and did some valuable work. I am so eager to hear the experts story.

Suppose you are a faculty member of a math department in a university. In this university we have the rule "publish or perish"; I know at least one such university, so the supposed set is not empty.

You are working on a special branch in a special field of mathematics which publishing paper is so difficult. Also, working on this topic is long term project which may have significant implications and results.

Parallel to this scenario, you are going to fire since you did not have sufficient number of publications.

In the other group in this department the situation is heavenly. They publish many papers since in their field publishing is so easy and there are a lot of Q1 journals for submitting and getting accept. You can spend several months with this group and learn this branch. Also, you can publish enough (as do not fire) with the team work.

But, the problem is that this field is not in your interest and your contribution to published paper is so weak.

What shall you do? Does The end justifies the means?

Comment: Finding another job (to working on your problem independently)is so difficult!

Any ideas and guidance will be appreciated.

Shahrooz
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    Don't see why people are downvoting this question. Maybe the tag general-mathematics is not suited, but the question seems as relevant as https://mathoverflow.net/questions/116734/publishing-a-bad-paper?rq=1 which was highly upvoted. – M. Dus Mar 14 '20 at 16:20
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    While this is a good question for another forum, most likely Academia, in this form I think it is actually harmful for MathOverflow. If it could be rewritten so it sounds less like "to research or not to research", I might find a way to fit it in to the mission here. Gerhard "We Are Pro Research Here" Paseman, 2020.03.14. – Gerhard Paseman Mar 14 '20 at 16:24
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    Different fields of math publish at different rates. However, one important skill that I look for when evaluating hiring and tenure cases is knowing their field (and self) well enough to identify problems they can solve in a reasonable amount of time. To phrase it a different way: it is easy to identify problems that are important but totally out of reach. The real skill is identifying things that are just barely accessible, and then doing them. – Andy Putman Mar 14 '20 at 16:45
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    @Gerhardpaseman I asked real question in a research level. I can not change it since it describe real situation. Anyway, your comment has a lot of followers since the question is closed now! Feel free. – Shahrooz Mar 14 '20 at 17:36
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    A first improvement to the question would be to find a more informative (and less poetic) title – YCor Mar 14 '20 at 17:38
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    @Andy putman you say your ideas but I asked special question. It is obvious that we must know our field to find good question. But sometimes you need to develop special branch. For example, why Sir Wiles traveled to USA? – Shahrooz Mar 14 '20 at 17:41
  • @YCor feel free to change the title. I do not know new things. But mathematicians always say logical poet! – Shahrooz Mar 14 '20 at 17:43
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    The title should reflect, or better summarize, what you want to ask. Maybe "Learning a new field under publishing pressure?" reflects the question. – YCor Mar 14 '20 at 17:52
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    @YCor Thanks for the title. – Shahrooz Mar 14 '20 at 17:58

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