The world of higher education was shocked when Marc Tessier-Lavigne, the former president of Stanford University, stepped down after an independent review found that published research conducted in his lab fell short of “scientific rigor and process” and was mired with flaws and manipulated data. As the news broke, another prominent researcher at Harvard University, lauded for her research on dishonesty, was placed on administrative leave for her allegedly fraudulent research. Then came Claudine Gay, who stepped down from Harvard amid discoveries of plagiarism on her part years ago.
Unfortunately for the world of academia, these are not isolated incidents. Underneath the spectacle of prominent researchers getting caught red-handed lies a swelling undercurrent of academic fraud festering in university research worldwide.
The number of scientific papers retracted due to fraudulent peer review and research misconduct has eclipsed 10,000 for the first time in 2023, according to Nature, a British scientific journal. A decade ago, retractions were just a tenth of what they are now.
As scandalous as the incidents at Stanford and Harvard University are, the lack of integrity in academic research seems to be stemming from Saudia Arabia, Pakistan, Russia and China. The latter may be the worst culprit. As China’s Ministry of Education’s Department of Science, Technology and Information began cracking down on the phenomenon, it has found there have been more than 17,000 retraction notices for papers published by Chinese co-authors since the beginning of 2021, Nature reports. And that’s only in English-language journals.
Hindawi, a London-based scientific research publisher and a subsidiary of Wiley, may have been the most affected by the rise of academic fraud. In 2023, they retracted more than 8,000 papers, the majority of which came from China.
“These retractions … have adversely affected our country’s academic reputation and academic environment,” said a Nov. 20 notice from the Ministry, according to The Daily Caller.
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Research paper mills that publish subpar or fake research are primarily to blame. They may seem genuine initially, but the problem becomes apparent and abhorrent upon detailed reading. They are known to use erroneous phrasing of commonly known diseases; for example, these articles may refer to breast cancer as “bosom peril” or Parkinson’s disease as “Parkinson’s ailment.”
These fraudulent paper mills often bribe academic journal editors to accept the work for up to $20,000 or more, Science reports, and at least “tens of millions of dollars” flow to the paper mill industry each year, said Matt Hodgkinson of the UK Research Integrity Office.
This trade may incentivize academics because of the reputation they gain from the number of published journals they author.
“If you have growing numbers of researchers who are being strongly incentivized to publish just for the sake of publishing, while we have a growing number of journals making money from publishing the resulting articles, you have a perfect storm,” said Professor Marcus Munafo of Bristol University, according to The Guardian. “That is exactly what we have now.”
Dangerous ramifications of fraudulent research
Academics are troubled by the rise in fraudulent papers due to the damage it can cause to the medical community.
“If, as a scientist, I want to check all the papers about a particular drug that might target cancers or stroke cases, it is very hard for me to avoid those that are fabricated. Scientific knowledge is being polluted by made-up material. We are facing a crisis,” said Professor Malcolm MacLeod of Edinburgh University in England, according to The Guardian.
Lousy research can have fatal consequences. Early trials that showed ivermectin, the anti-parasite drug, could be a potential “miracle drug” to COVID-19, was found to contain fraudulent research. However, it soon became a staple for communities staunchly against the vaccine.
