The Dispatch
Calls Beckon for a Research Watchdog in India
As India’s research sector continues to grow, so do cases of misconduct. Experts believe impartial oversight and an end to the numbers game will help rebuild trust.
By Rohan Mehra
“The problem seems unfixable due to the structure of the modern university with its fixation on research metrics.”
“There’s no central research integrity office in India like in many countries.”
“The current approach lacks sufficient multi-stakeholder partnership.”
In Brief
- India's research output is skyrocketing, yet this growth is coupled with a sharp rise in retractions, driven by fraudulent means and the pressure to meet publication targets.
- Institutional fixation on research metrics (H-index, rankings) encourages sophisticated misconduct, including purchased co-authorships and the use of AI-generated papers. Institutions often worsen the problem by ignoring misconduct.
- Experts agree that meaningful change requires establishing a central, impartial research integrity office with authority and "teeth". This must be coupled with shifting evaluation from quantity to quality
“News about higher education will say India is doing very well in the rankings, the number of publications is skyrocketing,” says Achal Agrawal, founder of India Research Watch (IRW).
“What they don’t say is that the number of retractions is as well. Because so many publications are being produced through fraudulent means, the retractions are going up.”
Researchers are people subject to the same imperfections and fallibilities as everyone else. While mostly honest, they can make mistakes or even deceive.
Research misconduct is universal, but regions vary in its extent, how it manifests and how it’s dealt with. India in particular has a unique set of struggles. As the world’s largest democracy, with complex (often bureaucratic) political structures, it’s no surprise that a matter somewhat intertwined with politics would lack a clear solution.
When people abroad hear that ‘some Indian article got retracted,’ over time it erodes our reputation. This is what IRW was set up to avoid,” adds Agrawal, whose company use data and public engagement to encourage systemic reforms around research.
He’s not alone, and a strong and growing movement of academics, administrators, and publishers are tackling misconduct at every level.
The Numbers Game
Typically, when issues around a researcher or paper appear, and it’s not a simple correctable mistake or oversight, then journals can retract papers. And retraction metrics form the basis for analysing research integrity.
“Following our editorial policies, when a concern is raised about a published article, an investigation can include expert review and institutional involvement as well as an opportunity for authors to respond to concerns,” says Madhurima Kahali, Head of Academic Relations and Partnerships at Taylor & Francis, former Editor at Springer Nature and once a genetic researcher.
“If Taylor & Francis conclude a correction or retraction is required, the original article will be updated with an accompanying notice permanently attached. Data and image integrity concerns are by far the most common problems investigated by our teams, but they also regularly focus on authorship issues and plagiarism.”
With clichés of science and academia being all about logic, reason and the quest for truth, it begs the question why any researcher, in India or elsewhere, would risk their reputations and tarnish their field, institution, or entire country through dishonesty to begin with.
In a recent Letter in the Indian Journal for Medical Ethics, Professor Nikhil Govind of the Manipal Centre for Humanities describes how practices such as purchased co-authorships, and even AI-generated papers have become normalised.
"The problem seems unfixable due to the structure of the modern university with its fixation on research metrics… rather than the original mandate of social mobility, student life, and mitigating social disharmony,” he writes. “One constantly hears stories of purchased co-authorship [as] shared authorship from a different country greatly increases a paper’s value. With numerous authors across several countries… it is almost impossible to apportion apt blame or responsibility.”
There have been some high profile cases of authorship deception in India. Last year Elsevier retracted 43 papers from the journal Bioresource Technology coauthored by Dr. Ashok Pandey, who served as Editor-in-Chief for the journal. In most cases, he reviewed the papers in question and was later added as coauthor, which was judged to be a major conflict of interest.
Though there are cases when researchers fall on their own swords and face a retraction following the discovery a colleague forged some result, they are by far the exception. All too often, institutions in India seem to sweep retractions under the rug, or perhaps worse, ignore them altogether, demonstrating indifference in lieu of punitive measures.
“Because of all that pressure to publish, to hit those targets, people resort to a lot of different, creative means to get papers published. And it’s not just the rankings, it’s the entire metrics-based system,” says Agrawal of IRW.
“At the university level the metrics are rankings, at the individual level they’re the H-index, citation counts, publication counts. And all of these have been gamed. Goodhart’s law applies, if a measure becomes a target, it becomes a bad measure. These metrics drive misconduct because everyone optimizes for the numbers instead of for the quality of research.”
Mounting Hopes
A look at retraction statistics reveals that high rates and the breaches of research integrity they represent are not unique to India. But while China has more centralised systems often quick to act on issues such as corruption, as recently highlighted by Retraction Watch, and more established high output regions like the US, UK, Japan, or Germany have tried and tested watchdogs in place, India does not.
“There’s no central research integrity office in India like in many countries, so there is no body to consider our findings. We try our hardest, but we don’t have any authority to act on the things we uncover,” says Agrawal.
“It’s important something with more authority and more teeth is developed by a central agency. Right now, all we can do is raise awareness, but we can’t enforce anything, and often we have to be careful not to name people or universities because of possible consequences. Our goal is not to punish individuals but to push for policy change, and without a proper watchdog, even clear data showing spikes in retractions won’t lead to meaningful action.”
Professor Shubhada Nagarkar, Head of the Department of Library and Information Science, and Coordinator for the Centre for Publication Ethics at Savitribai Phule Pune University, has worked extensively on research integrity and publication ethics, she adds a positive note that beyond watchdogs, libraries, as the custodians of knowledge, can contribute too.
“India’s research world is expanding fast, but its real strength in the future will depend on how sincerely it adopts integrity. Numbers alone don’t bring respect, true strength lies in honesty, quality, and trust. The positive side is that major cases are wake-up calls leading to stronger checks and growing commitment to ethics,” she says.
“I have seen firsthand the challenges researchers face in accessing quality literature and the temptations of predatory publishing. Libraries have a long legacy of ensuring the authenticity of information and can play a major role in guiding researchers to uphold integrity. They can raise awareness about publishing practices, alert researchers to misconduct, and support them in finding reliable sources.”
A way forward
Though change is slow, there are some positive moves afoot from within the government. India’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), the top domestic ranking body, threatens to penalise or even exclude universities that repeatedly fail to address mounting retractions. However, this double-edged sword could encourage further obfuscation of problematic papers and researchers to begin with, hence the general call for a watchdog, perhaps not unlike the US Office of Research Integrity or Japan’s Association for the Promotion of Research Integrity.
“The current approach lacks sufficient multi-stakeholder partnership. Government agencies, universities, and publishers largely operate independently rather than through unified efforts. Notable gaps persist in delivering consistent training across institutional tiers and developing comprehensive accountability mechanisms,” says Kahali from Taylor & Francis.
“Reducing research misconduct will require concerted efforts from all stakeholders and structural reforms, particularly shifting from quantity-focused metrics to quality-centred research evaluation. Ethics training should be an integral part of the academic curriculum. This comprehensive approach can foster a research ecosystem where integrity functions as an intrinsic value rather than an externally imposed requirement, upholding India's research standards and international reputation. Afterall, research impact depends on trust.”