A picture used only for a representative purpose. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/Istockphoto
In the first year, since this year, the national framework of the institutional ranking (NIRF) will award a negative score of university educational institutions for contributions that have been inserted from magazines in the last three calendar years and their corresponding quotes from magazines and their corresponding citations.
“This year we will award some negative weight for inserted documents and their quotes. Next year will be a fine,” says Anil Sahashrabudhe, chairman of the National Accreditation Council (NBA), the agency managed by NIRF. This is the first time that NIRF makes a negative weight in calculating the evaluation.
“It will be taken into account both the number of downloads and the quotes from these inserted documents,” says Dr. Sahashrabudhe. “We also learn and fine -tune the system of negative scoring as we go.”
“By allocating a negative score, we want to send a strong message that research should be carried out ethically,” he says. Explains why NIRF gives a negative score for download, and says: “The number of downloads was small a few years ago, but the number increased in a few years. So we take it seriously.”
While most of the downloads are caused by unethical research practices such as data production, handling of images, using the same image in multiple articles dealing with completely different materials using large language models (LLM) without proper publication, etc., some are caused by real errors. For this reason, magazines do not want to give themselves the impression that the withdrawal is necessarily bad. Will it be right to penalize the download institutions that were caused by real mistakes and not because of unethical practices? “Downloading due to real mistakes is much smaller and it happened a few years ago. But most of the downloads are now caused by unethical practices,” he says.
The fact that the number of inserted documents from China and the US is much higher than India cannot be quoted as a reason, he says. “India should not be in a race with China and the US for negative things.”
It does not rule out harder punishments to institutions that have still had a large number of downloads in the coming years. First, the punishment will be mild this year, which will become a hard and harder next year if the institutions continue to have a large number of downloads every year, he says. “Maybe we could even institutions on a black list for several years if the withdrawal remains high,” says Dr. Sahashrabudhe.
It rejects any objection that institutions should not be punished for unlawful conduct of individual scientists, cutting off: “If institutions can take loan for the number of contributions published by their scientists, they should also accept discrediting (fine) for towed documents.
It is time for institutions to take research ethics seriously and encourage their faculty to engage in ethical research practices, he says. “The focus should be shifted from only the quality of research and research ethics,” says Dr. Sahashrabudhe.
“Research and professional practices” is one of the important parameters used by NIRF for evaluation institutions. According to this head, the score is awarded for parameters, such as a weighted number of publications in a given year, the quality of publications that are measured based on the total number of citations in the previous three years and the number of citations in the TOP 25 percentage average in the previous three years.
According to him, the international authorities involved in the evaluation institutions began to take into account the inserted papers. The way he says is a reflection of the growing number of downloads in recent years. Unlike a few years ago, magazines have now become more responded to red flags caused by independent research workers who point to serious shortcomings in published contributions. The time required to retract the papers has also decreased significantly. Also magazines themselves have launched an investigation into articles produced by LLMS without the correct publication, the authors have added or changed during the control process without adequate explanations and manuscripts produced by paper mills – fraudulent organizations that earn money by writing false manuscripts and offer authorial slots for sale to academic customers.
Published – July 19, 2025 21:10
