Ranking and citation rat race is hurting India's academic reputation

Abstract

The rising obsession of Indian institutions with metrics and rankings is leading to a crisis in academia, with dire consequences for the credibility of research emanating from the country. Academic contributions have been reduced to a numbers game, and institutions are being measured by their publication count or citation scores, not by the originality or real-world impact of their research. In this atmosphere, academic integrity is often the first casualty. Some universities have resorted to dubious practices, including manipulating publication metrics, to climb the Indian and global rankings ladder. A recent article in the journal Science highlights the proliferation of “shoddy commentaries” designed solely to game the metrics system. Researchers demonstrated how some institutions artificially created citation networks to inflate their visibility. The data accompanying the study reveals that some Indian institutions are producing hundreds of low-quality papers annually. This practice not only distorts the true quality of research but also diverts resources and attention away from meaningful academic pursuits.