IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v129y2024i12d10.1007_s11192-024-05192-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Over two decades of scientific misconduct in India: Retraction reasons and journal quality among inter-country and intra-country institutional collaboration

Author

Listed:
  • Kiran Sharma

    (BML Munjal University
    BML Munjal University)

Abstract

Research is a pivotal factor in propelling the progress of any nation forward. However, if it is contaminated by misconduct, it poses a significant threat to the development of the country. Recognizing the importance of genuine research and understanding the ramifications of scientific malpractice is essential for grasping a nation’s trajectory of growth. This study aims to examine various cases of scientific misconduct by Indian researchers. A comprehensive analysis was conducted on 3244 retracted publications sourced from the Retraction Watch database. The upward trend in retractions is alarming, although the decreasing duration of retractions indicates proactive measures by journals against misconduct. More than half of the retractions come from private institutions, with fake peer reviews identified as the primary reason for misconduct. This trend could be attributed to the incentivization of quantity over quality in private institutions, which could foster unfair publishing practices. Retractions due to data integrity issues are predominantly observed in public and medical institutions, while retractions due to plagiarism occur in conference proceedings and non-Scopus-indexed journals. Examining retractions resulting from institutional collaborations reveals that 80% originates within the country, while the remaining 20% are international collaborations. In the realm of international collaborations, one third of retractions originate from high-ranking journals, while within domestic collaborations, half of retractions arise from similarly-esteemed publications. In contrast, a significant portion 86% of retractions stem from articles and conference proceedings within domestic collaborations, compared to 87% originating solely from articles in international collaborations. Furthermore, when examining the top journals in terms of retraction frequency within domestic collaborations, they are typically distributed among all categories, with a major proportion in Q1, whereas in international collaborations, they are predominantly found in the Q1 and Q2 categories. This highlights the tendency for retractions associated with international partnerships to occur in prestigious journals, while those linked with domestic collaborations often involve publications of higher to lower quality. The other highlight is that the highest number of retractions occurs when the authors are from the same institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Kiran Sharma, 2024. "Over two decades of scientific misconduct in India: Retraction reasons and journal quality among inter-country and intra-country institutional collaboration," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(12), pages 7735-7757, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:129:y:2024:i:12:d:10.1007_s11192-024-05192-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-024-05192-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-024-05192-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-024-05192-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pratibha Sharma & Bhavya Sharma & Asad Reza & Krishna Kishore Inampudi & Rajinder K Dhamija, 2023. "A systematic review of retractions in biomedical research publications: reasons for retractions and their citations in Indian affiliations," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. Fernando Racimo & Nicolas Galtier & Véronique de Herde & Noémie Bonn & Ben Phillips & Thomas Guillemaud & Denis Bourguet, 2022. "Ethical publishing: how do we get there?," Post-Print hal-03621386, HAL.
    3. Philippe Mongeon & Vincent Larivière, 2016. "Costly collaborations: The impact of scientific fraud on co-authors' careers," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 67(3), pages 535-542, March.
    4. Kiran Sharma & Satyam Mukherjee, 2024. "The ripple effect of retraction on an author’s collaboration network," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 1519-1531, October.
    5. Nadia Elia & Elizabeth Wager & Martin R Tramèr, 2014. "Fate of Articles That Warranted Retraction Due to Ethical Concerns: A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-8, January.
    6. Bakthavachalam Elango, 2021. "Retracted articles in the biomedical literature from Indian authors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(5), pages 3965-3981, May.
    7. Bakthavachalam Elango & Marcin Kozak & Periyaswamy Rajendran, 2019. "Analysis of retractions in Indian science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 1081-1094, May.
    8. Wei Chen & Qin-Rui Xing & Hui Wang & Tao Wang, 2018. "Retracted publications in the biomedical literature with authors from mainland China," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 217-227, January.
    9. Kiran Sharma, 2021. "Team size and retracted citations reveal the patterns of retractions from 1981 to 2020," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(10), pages 8363-8374, October.
    10. Judit Bar-Ilan & Gali Halevi, 2018. "Temporal characteristics of retracted articles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 1771-1783, September.
    11. Bhumika Bhatt, 2021. "A multi-perspective analysis of retractions in life sciences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(5), pages 4039-4054, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. N. Siva & P. Rajendran, 2023. "Retracted publications in BRICS countries: an analytical study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(12), pages 6313-6333, December.
    2. Behzad Gholampour & Sajad Gholampour & Alireza Noruzi & Clément Arsenault & Thomas Haertlé & Ali Akbar Saboury, 2022. "Retracted articles in oncology in the last three decades: frequency, reasons, and themes," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(4), pages 1841-1865, April.
    3. Bakthavachalam Elango, 2021. "Retracted articles in the biomedical literature from Indian authors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(5), pages 3965-3981, May.
    4. Bakthavachalam Elango, 2022. "Characteristics of retracted editorial articles in the biomedical literature," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(3), pages 1431-1438, March.
    5. Catalin Toma & Liliana Padureanu & Bogdan Toma, 2022. "Correction of the Scientific Production: Publisher Performance Evaluation Using a Dataset of 4844 PubMed Retractions," Publications, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-25, April.
    6. Metwaly Ali Mohamed Eldakar & Ahmed Maher Khafaga Shehata, 2023. "A bibliometric study of article retractions in technology fields in developing economies countries," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(11), pages 6047-6083, November.
    7. Kiran Sharma, 2021. "Team size and retracted citations reveal the patterns of retractions from 1981 to 2020," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(10), pages 8363-8374, October.
    8. Lingzi Feng & Junpeng Yuan & Liying Yang, 2020. "An observation framework for retracted publications in multiple dimensions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1445-1457, November.
    9. Pratibha Sharma & Bhavya Sharma & Asad Reza & Krishna Kishore Inampudi & Rajinder K Dhamija, 2023. "A systematic review of retractions in biomedical research publications: reasons for retractions and their citations in Indian affiliations," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    10. Qin Zhang & Juneman Abraham & Hui-Zhen Fu, 2020. "Collaboration and its influence on retraction based on retracted publications during 1978–2017," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 213-232, October.
    11. Shenghui Li & Wenyan Xu & Jingqi Yin, 2023. "Cross-cultural differences in retracted publications of male and female from a global perspective," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(7), pages 3805-3826, July.
    12. Ivan Heibi & Silvio Peroni, 2021. "A qualitative and quantitative analysis of open citations to retracted articles: the Wakefield 1998 et al.'s case," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(10), pages 8433-8470, October.
    13. Sergio Copiello, 2020. "Other than detecting impact in advance, alternative metrics could act as early warning signs of retractions: tentative findings of a study into the papers retracted by PLoS ONE," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2449-2469, December.
    14. José Luis Ortega & Lorena Delgado-Quirós, 2024. "The indexation of retracted literature in seven principal scholarly databases: a coverage comparison of dimensions, OpenAlex, PubMed, Scilit, Scopus, The Lens and Web of Science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(7), pages 3769-3785, July.
    15. Marion Schmidt, 2024. "Why do some retracted articles continue to get cited?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(12), pages 7535-7563, December.
    16. Frederique Bordignon, 2020. "Self-correction of science: a comparative study of negative citations and post-publication peer review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1225-1239, August.
    17. Salim Moussa, 2022. "The propagation of error: retracted articles in marketing and their citations," Italian Journal of Marketing, Springer, vol. 2022(1), pages 11-36, March.
    18. Bor Luen Tang, 2023. "Some Insights into the Factors Influencing Continuous Citation of Retracted Scientific Papers," Publications, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-14, October.
    19. Felipe Eduardo Valencise & Camila Vantini Capasso Palamim & Fernando Augusto Lima Marson, 2023. "Retraction of Clinical Trials about the SARS-CoV-2 Infection: An Unaddressed Problem and Its Possible Impact on Coronavirus Disease (COVID)-19 Treatment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-16, January.
    20. Bakthavachalam Elango, 2025. "Assigning different document types by Scopus for similar contents: an exploratory analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 130(3), pages 1989-2003, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:129:y:2024:i:12:d:10.1007_s11192-024-05192-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.