[chasely]

They publish peer-reviewed articles in decent-quality publications.

How you judge the latter is tougher and very domain specific, but each field usually has 1-2 "target" journals where the best work goes, and another 2-3 "second choice" journals that aren't as prestigious but still have good works. Usually the research topics going to the second choice journals just aren't as sexy as the work that gets into the target journals.