The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), a yearly university ranking published by India\u2019s Ministry of Education, will begin deducting points from institutions whose researchers have had a high number of articles retracted for plagiarism, data manipulation, or fraud. The count will be based on retractions of papers indexed in the Scopus and Web of Science databases. Because this is the first year the ranking will factor in retractions, the disadvantages will be light and primarily symbolic.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext year, the penalties will be more severe,\u201d Anil Sahasrabudhe, chair of the National Board of Accreditation, which is responsible for the national ranking, told the newspaper The Hindu<\/em><\/a>. \u201cBy awarding a negative score for retractions, we want to send out a strong message that research should be conducted ethically,\u201d he said. If retraction rates remain high over the coming years, the government may even revoke universities\u2019 accreditation.<\/p>\n The NIRF was created in 2016 and ranks approximately 3,800 Indian higher education institutions based on indicators that measure their performance in teaching, research, outreach, inclusion, graduate career success, and reputation in industry and the scientific community. Universities and colleges are required to participate in the ranking in order to access national scholarship programs, and the highest-ranking institutions are given greater freedom over their curriculum.<\/p>\n The decision to penalize universities for repeated misconduct is a government response to the high incidence of retractions among its researchers: in India, two of every thousand papers published ends up being retracted\u2014twice as many as in the US. Two months ago, Indian universities occupied the top nine spots on a list of higher education institutions with the world\u2019s highest proportion of retracted articles and papers published in journals removed from databases for questionable practices (see<\/em> Pesquisa FAPESP issue n\u00ba. 354<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n