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To ensure the healthy development of academia, there has to be fundamental changes made to China’s academic incentive system with a move away from the current method of judging researchers through the number of publications they have in ranked journals. This method leads some to chase after numbers while ignoring academic integrity. With deep roots in Chinese cultural traditions and a fertile soil that nourishes corruption, China’s battle against research misconduct is doomed to be arduous.

Students have “no understanding” of what plagiarism is and why they must avoid it, according to new research. An education research fellow at the University of Otago, finds that universities might need to consider their plagiarism policies and how they might “influence or confuse students in counterproductive ways”. The qualitative study, published in the journal Higher Education, found that although “aware of plagiarism as a concept” and believing that those who “intentionally cheat are cheating everybody”, students were ignorant of the potential implications of unintentional plagiarism.

Some 34 percent of academic theses in Turkey have high plagiarism rates, according to a report by the Education Policy Research and Application Center (BEPAM) of Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University. In its study on the “quality of academic writing,” BEPAM examined 600 theses in total, including 470 master’s theses and 130 doctoral theses written between 2007 and 2016. The study revealed “heavy plagiarism” in 34 percent of the theses. The rate was 46 percent in private universities and 31 percent in public universities.

The Higher Education Ministry and Universiti Malaya (UM) will investigate allegations of research fraud involving a group of UM faculty of medicine researchers. The allegations of fraud exploded over social media in the past week, and was subsequently picked up by the mainstream scientific press.The Higher Education Minister has said that he would personally look into the matter. The university has formed an ad hoc committee to investigate the allegation.

The Office of the Higher Education Commission (Ohec) has warned universities they are responsible for placing more emphasis on the quality of teaching, especially at the graduate level, after two cases of alleged thesis plagiarism at Silpakorn University were unveiled last month. Ohec oversees higher education institutes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Its secretary-general says the office is concerned over the allegations.

In an unprecedented crackdown on academic misconduct, as many as 179 university professors from some 110 universities in South Korea were indicted on Monday after an extensive criminal investigation into a huge copyright scam. The professors have been charged with republishing existing textbooks written by others under their own names by modifying the covers with the alleged connivance of the publishing companies.

The academic spectrum across several Pakistani universities has become infected with the deadly plague of plagiarism. Academic integrity seems to have melted in the heat of churning out research papers to receive more grants, promotions and other benefits.