Japan’s Ministry of Education is in the hot seat over revelations that it lobbied universities to hire its retiring officials, a practice known as amakudari (descent from heaven) which is officially banned in Japan. In late 2016, damning evidence emerged that the ministry attempted to conceal its involvement in the case of a retiring ministry official landing a job at Waseda University by distributing answers to anticipated questions so that everyone involved could coordinate a story of denial.

The University of Devonshire, the University of Wexford and the University of Palmers Green are among the trading names of the University Degree Programme, set up with websites looking like they were licensed universities. Thankfully, these fake institutions have all long since been shut down, though the qualifications they issued may still be in use. New fake universities appear all the time. The process to set up a fake university can be easy. Continued alertness and vigilance is needed to preserve academic integrity. We need to stop fake universities trading on commodities that they’re not licensed to award.