The National Board of Accreditation (NBA), which oversees the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings, will penalise higher education institutions (HEIs) if a significant number of research papers published by their faculty are retracted, in a move aimed at curbing the rising instances of academic misconduct in the country, officials said on Thursday.
NBA chairperson Anil Sahasrabudhe said negative marking for retracted papers in NIRF ranking 2025 is aimed at tackling the rise in retractions of papers. He said it was noted that several institutions pressure students and faculty to publish low-quality research (which later gets retracted) to boost their rankings.
India ranks only next to China in the number of retractions, as per Retraction Watch Database, a global repository that tracks retracted research papers across disciplines, highlighting reasons such as plagiarism, data falsification, or peer review manipulation. In China, more than three out of 1,000 publications are retracted, while it is two per 1,000 in India. In the US, less than one paper is retracted for every 1,000 papers published.
In an analysis by India Research Watch (IRW) based on data by Retraction Watch Database, the total number of retractions from India between 1996 and 2024 stood at 5,412 with an average retraction rate of 1.80 per 1000 publications. Of these, the maximum or 2650 (48%) were classified as ‘serious’ such as plagiarism and data manipulation, 32% (1757) with issues around integrity like fake peer review or misconduct by the author and 12% (652) involved flawed research, unreliable data or errors that could also be honest.
Since 2019, the number of retractions from India have increased significantly with a spike recorded in the last four years. In 2022, the number of retractions were the maximum at 1212 followed by 2023 (866) and 2024 (860). In the last seven months of this year, there have been 571 retractions.
{{/usCountry}}Since 2019, the number of retractions from India have increased significantly with a spike recorded in the last four years. In 2022, the number of retractions were the maximum at 1212 followed by 2023 (866) and 2024 (860). In the last seven months of this year, there have been 571 retractions.
{{/usCountry}}Also Read: CM Yogi stresses on inclusion of private institutes under SIRF to ensure quality
The decision to penalise universities with too many restrictions is a much needed move, said Achal Agrawal, founder, IRW, adding that the IRW has been calling for this action for more than a year.
“Retractions are a symptom of a bigger malaise in the whole research ecosystem. If you want to look at the root cause, we should be looking at the metrics that we use to reward universities and to scientists as well,” said Agrawal. “University rankings are based on various parameters. Publishing research is one of them. But what’s incentivised is quantity rather than quality. Retractions are a consequence of that.”
Stating that IRW has been calling for some penalty since there has been a spike in retractions in India, Agrawal added, “When retractions are taken into account in the ranking process, it will definitely make universities act since it will directly hit them. But how it is implemented will matter a lot.”
For effective execution of the decision, Agrawal said it’s also essential to use a comprehensive database such as Retraction Watch or Scopus. “Not all retractions are due to misconduct. There could also be some honest errors. Universities that are penalised should know what has got them into trouble,” said Agrawal, adding that Retraction Watch is a good database to refer to since it also mentions reasons for the same.
Currently, NBA conducts the NIRF rankings for Indian higher education institutions in 16 categories.
A new category – sustainability will be added wherein institutions will be assessed on Sustainable Development Goals 2030. NIRF evaluates institutions based on six key parameters with different weightages: Teaching, Learning & Resources (TLR) carries a weightage of 30%, as does Research and Professional Practice (RP); Graduation Outcomes (GO) account for 20% of the total score; Outreach and Inclusivity (OI) is assigned 10%, while Perception (PR) also contributes 10%. These weightages may vary slightly depending on the category of the institution.
The Research and Professional Practice (RP) parameter in NIRF includes publications, citation quality, patents and IPR, as well as sponsored research and consultancy projects.
NBA chief Sahasrabudhe said, “Journals withdrawing the papers after complaints of unethical practices and cheating are called as retraction of the paper. Even if a research paper was published and counted towards an institute’s ranking in previous years, a retraction discovered later will still attract a penalty in the current year. This is to send a strong message against unethical practices. Institutions must correct their approach. While penalties may continue for a year or two, consistent ethical conduct will eventually result in barring them from NIRF rankings,” he said.
Explaining the process of negative marking for retracted papers, he said that institutions having retracted papers will lose marks for citations under RP parameter and their NIRF rank will fall.
“We will use the data for retracted papers from journals itself instead of third party sources [The Retraction Watch]. In the coming years, we will name those institutions and bar from NIRF rankings for three to five years. We want to send a message to institutions that this is not only the name of your institute getting spoiled but the name of the country is also getting spoiled due to retracted papers,” he added.
The ninth edition of NIRF rankings will be released “very soon”, he said.
NIRF 2024 rankings were released on August 12, 2024.