The Turnbull government is set to overhaul the way university research is funded by dramatically downgrading the importance of publishing articles in little-read academic journals.

Prime Minister Turnbull wants to end the "publish or perish" culture in which academics are pressured to focus on constant publishing rather than producing work with commercial and community benefit.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has faced questions about his private tax arrangements. Credit:Getty Images

In 2013, Australia ranked last in the developed world on the proportion of businesses which collaborate with research institutions on innovation.

Under one proposal, the government would entirely scrap the use of research publications from the way it allocates $1 billion a year in block research grants and PhD research funding, sources said.