‘Publish Or Perish’ Culture Is Fuelling Research Misconduct In India

In July 2021, the Bengaluru-based National Centre for Biological Sciences withdrew a paper published in Nature Chemical Biology, a premier journal, after discovering instances of data manipulation.

The study, which announced a breakthrough in chemical biology, was withdrawn after being found to have manipulated images.

In September 2024, the journal Drug Safety retracted a study conducted by researchers from Banaras Hindu University on the long-term safety of Covaxin, India’s indigenous COVID-19 vaccine.

The withdrawal was due to concerns that the reported adverse events could lead to ambiguous or incorrect interpretations regarding the vaccine’s safety.

In close to two decades now, faculty members from the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have retracted a staggering 58 papers, primarily due to plagiarism and duplication.

As India strives towards Viksit Bharat 2047 — the goal of becoming a developed nation — strengthening research integrity, research funding and innovation ecosystems will be crucial.

However, rising cases of research misconduct, including plagiarism, data fraud and fake peer review, pose a serious threat to this vision. Research misconduct refers to unethical practices in conducting, reporting or reviewing research.

Such misconduct often leads to retractions. According to Retraction Watch, a global database, common reasons for retraction include fraud and misconduct, ethical violations, errors and mistakes, publication issues, and legal and policy violations. Such unethical practices not only damage the credibility of Indian institutions but also erode trust in research, affecting international collaborations and funding opportunities.

Addressing these challenges requires urgent reforms in research evaluation, stronger institutional oversight and a shift towards quality-driven academic assessments.

Growth of research and rising retractions

India’s research output has increased rapidly over the past decade, with hundreds and thousands of papers published annually in reputed journals.

The National Science Foundation, 2022 report ranks India as the third-largest producer of science and engineering articles, after China and the United States. According to the scientific abstract and citation database Scopus, India has produced 3.67 million papers since 1867. Of these, 3,446 (0.09 percent) are retracted.

While the growth of research is promising, the rising number of retractions is concerning. A study by this author shows primary causes of retractions are plagiarism, data fraud and fake peer review. Retractions due to these increased by 6.3 percent from 1991–2000 to 2001–2010.

The upward trend has continued: retractions rose by 32 percent from 2001–2010 to 2011–2020.

Quantity over quality

“When a scientist’s survival is determined by impact factors, ethics becomes the privilege of a few who can afford to be ethical,” said a scientist at the University of Pune, who was quoted in an article on research misconduct in India.

Impact factor refers to the average number of citations to recent articles published in a journal, indicating the journal’s influence in an academic field. Publishing in high impact factor journals translates into appointments, promotions, institution rankings and research grants.

And here lies the root of the problem — evaluating scientific success by over-relying on impact factors, publication counts and rankings among organisations. This creates immense pressure, pushing researchers toward unethical practices.

There are comprehensive guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics — a non-profit organisation that provides guidance to editors and publishers on all aspects of publication ethics, especially research and publication misconduct — and mandatory research ethics courses for students before they start PhD programmes.

But whether the practices outlined by these efforts are genuinely practiced and embraced, or treated merely as formalities, remains a subject of debate.

One of the primary reasons for the rising pressure on academics is the “publish or perish” culture, where academic promotions and funding are heavily tied to publication volume rather than research quality.

This intense pressure pushes some researchers toward unethical shortcuts, including plagiarism, fake peer review and data fabrication.

This author’s study revealed that fake peer review is the leading cause of retractions in India, accounting for 33 percent of total cases, followed by data fraud (17.2 percent) and plagiarism (14.8 percent). Among higher education institutions/universities, private institutions contributed to 60 percent of retractions, while public institutions accounted for 33.7 percent, and medical institutions made up 6.7 percent.

Enforcing research integrity

Without urgent and necessary changes in research evaluation and academic incentives, addressing research misconduct will remain a significant challenge.

The presence of legally enforceable misconduct policies and a strong academic culture where research undergoes rigorous scrutiny from peers, mentors, and society, can serve as deterrents for such misconduct.

Countries that offer cash rewards for publications may appear to encourage researchers, but ironically face a higher risk of misconduct. This suggests that such incentives might encourage negligence or unethical practices within the research community.

Addressing research misconduct thus requires a multifaceted approach that respects the autonomy of researchers while establishing clear boundaries against unethical practices.

In India, given the diverse research ecosystems and financial structures across Indian institutions, implementing a uniform national solution is challenging.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) recently discontinued the UGC-CARE (Consortium for Academic and Research Ethics) system of listing quality journals. The idea is to move towards a decentralised approach — empowering individual institutions to set their own criteria for journal selection, fostering academic freedom and encouraging more rigorous and context-specific evaluations.

The reasons cited for the discontinuation include a number of poor quality journals and pay-and-publish or predatory journals which had found their way into the list, while several Indian language journals were left out.

The new system allows for a broader range of journals — based on certain parameters — for the faculty to publish in.

Indian institutions need to develop and enforce comprehensive research integrity policies, including mandatory training in research ethics. Establishing dedicated committees to oversee research conduct can also ensure adherence to ethical standards.

Promoting open peer review processes and encouraging researchers to share data and methodologies can enhance transparency and accountability in research. Such practices deter misconduct by subjecting research to broader scrutiny.

(Published under Creative Commons from 360info™. Read the original article here)