Do my publications help my department/university?
(Although OP is in the US, the question doesn't have a &quot;united-states&quot; tag, so...)
In England and Wales, there's a pot of government money called &quot;QR funding&quot;, which is allocated to universities in proportion to the quality and quantity of their faculty members' research publications, as measured in an episodic exercise called &quot;REF&quot;.