Growing numbers of ‘highly cited’ turn out to be fraudsters

The number of academics excluded from an influential list of highly cited scholars over research misconduct has nearly doubled in the space of a year.

Analytics giant Clarivate, which publishes Highly Cited Researchers annually, warned of growing efforts “to game the system and create self-generated status”.

The annual list – which draws on data from the Web of Science citation index – includes almost 7,000 researchers from across the globe who demonstrated significant influence in their chosen field over the past decade.

This year, Clarivate was aided by Retraction Watch to address potential misconduct by members on the list – including plagiarism and fake peer reviews.

About 550 potential candidates were found to have committed scientific misconduct in formal proceedings and excluded from the final list in 2022 – up from only 300 the year before.

David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) at Clarivate, told Times Higher Education that in a few years up to 10 per cent of those identified may be excluded for misconduct.

“Research misconduct is an ever-increasing concern in our world,” he said. “Activities such as unusual citation activity and fake peer review may represent efforts to game the system and create self-generated status.

“This is why we’ve expanded our qualitative analysis this year to ensure the Highly Cited Researchers list reflects genuine, community-wide research influence.”

The community as a whole needs to police itself better to ensure integrity in research and its publication, he added.

Spanning 69 countries or regions, the 2022 list shows the US to be again home to the largest proportion of Highly Cited Researchers, with 38.3 per cent – although this was down from 43.3 per cent in 2018.

Over the same period, China has more than doubled its share, from 7.9 per cent to 16.2 per cent.

“The mainland Chinese research systems and institutions continue to impress – the world’s largest research organisation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has just a handful fewer Highly Cited Researchers than Harvard University, which has long held a solid position at the front of the pack,” said Mr Pendlebury.

Elsewhere, the UK increased its share of researchers from 7.5 per cent to 8 per cent year-on-year, which Clarivate highlighted as being “remarkably high” given its population size.

It was followed by Germany (5.1 per cent) and Australia (4.7 per cent).

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com