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Scientists from the University of Ottawa, The Ottawa Hospital and other top-tier institutions across Canada keep publishing their results in fake science journals, tainting the work despite years of warnings. One veteran science publisher warns all the work that produced these studies “is just thrown away.” Until recently, the scope of the problem of “predatory” journals has been hard to measure. Now, one giant in the fake publishing field, OMICS International of India, has improved the search engine for 700 journals. Hundreds of Canadian scientists were found to have published recently with the Indian firm — the same company that accepted this newspaper’s analysis of how pigs fly.

The country’s anti-corruption agency is partnering with the National Universities Commission, or NUC, to sponsor 20 doctoral theses engaging with anti-corruption issues over the next 10 years and to introduce an anti-corruption course for all students at undergraduate level. The Head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said university students constituted a strategic target for anti-corruption training and awareness which is the reason for their support of anti-corruption research and scholarship and the anti-corruption course for all university undergraduates.

Tertiary education unions in Nigeria are campaigning against a Treasury Single Account, implemented by the President to checkmate fraud and corruption in federal institutions and agencies, including in the education sector. The unions are worried about delayed salary payments and crippled grants from foreign partners for training and research. Tertiary education unions say that partners have threatened to withdraw financial support if the rigid new system is not made more flexible.

More Canadian institutions will face controversy over the influence of donors on programmes if they do not rethink their relationship with private funders, warn academics who have studied the relationship between donations and educational institutions. This is following a string of cases over the past decade that have led academics across the country to criticize postsecondary institutions that appear to be willing to share control over their research agenda with private donors.

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.

A summer school entitled "From Principles to Practice: Higher education policy and research project management" was organized in Cape Town for masters and PhD students in the field of higher education studies. Practical examples and tips were given on how to navigate the field of competitive funding applications, the so-called "dirty" world of research.

Since the end of the Cold War, a dramatic increase in global education has led to increased commercialization, as well as an increase in corruption. Corruption in higher education should not only be seen in terms of misuse of research funds, presentation and construction of fraudulent data, or inequitable admissions practices.

In a case that has rocked the academic community in Taiwan and put many scientific research projects in jeopardy, 22 professors at some of the country's top universities – including the prestigious National Taiwan University – have been charged with using false receipts to claim reimbursements out of research funds.

A well-known obesity researcher will plead guilty to making material false statements in a 1999 grant application worth $542,000 from the US National Institutes of Health. The researcher, who held various research positions at the University of Vermont (UVM) College of Medicine in Burlington could go to jail for up to 5 years.

A former Texas Tech University researcher, who was convicted of mishandling harassment complaints and cheating the university out of its share of clinical-research money, was sentenced last week to two years in prison and a $15,000 fine.