Singapore is at far greater risk of academic fraud now, given the increasingly competitive academic environment here.The danger has always been around, but the pressure to "publish or perish" has steadily been increasing in recent years, in the light of the rise of the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in international league tables, such as the closely watched Times Higher Education World University Rankings, over the past few years. A university's research quality and output play a key role in the assessment so academics have a compelling incentive to make a mark.

On September 24, 2017 the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant reported on an investigation into self-plagiarism (zelfplagiaat) that was conducted by a Nijmengen research group. The sociologist of science and his PhD student analysed 922 publications by Dutch researchers from recent years. In economics, 14 % of the papers contained text from previous publications of the author(s), in psychology the figure was 5 %. They even found a duplicate article republished with just one small change, and two highly similar articles by the same author in the same issue of a journal. They also found that authors who publish more papers are more likely to reuse text.

The Swedish organization in charge of reviewing research has judged that scandal-hit surgeon was guilty of scientific misconduct for misleadingly describing synthetic trachea operations as successful in a series of research articles. In 2014, four doctors at Stockholm's Karolinska University Hospital reported him to the then president of the Karolinska Institute (KI) for allegedly distorting the facts about his operations with artificial tracheas when presenting them in scientific journals. The articles were subsequently reviewed in 2015 by Uppsala University surgical sciences professor, who concluded that Macchiarini was guilty of research misconduct, but KI's overall assessment was to clear him and the co-authors.

The Department of Higher Education and Training will probe claims about predatory publishing, and could withdraw subsidies paid out for the academic articles in question. An analysis by Stellenbosch University researchers found that from 2005 to 2014, South African academics published more than 4,200 papers in 47 journals that were either "probably or possibly predatory". Predatory publishing involves unscrupulous open access publishers who publish articles with little or no real peer review. The government pays a university about R100,000 for an academic article, which has to be published in a journal accredited by the Department of Higher Education and Training.

Kenya’s Commission for University Education has issued stringent new guidelines for the appointment and promotion of academic staff in a system that gives heavy emphasis to publication in reputable, peer-reviewed journals and discourages publication in so-called predatory journals. While the move is intended to raise academic standards, it has also raised concerns about the hurdles to publication facing many Kenyan academics.

Months after an academic librarian deleted lists of “predatory” journals and publishers from his blog, a website with derogatory comments about his academic qualifications and mental health remains online. A communications librarian at the University of Colorado at Denver, for years maintained lists of scholarly journals and publishers he deemed “predatory. The lists, while controversial, were a resource for many scholars wondering if the invitation to publish a paper or present at a conference sitting in their inbox was legitimate.

In order to improve the quality of published research and to crack down on so-called ‘predatory’ academic publishers – who charge fees to authors but fail to provide adequate quality control, or make misleading claims about their quality – India’s University Grants Commission (UGC) has published lists of approved journals for publishing research papers. The UGC, a statutory body that oversees university education in India, has now linked academic promotions and recruitment to its system of Academic Performance Indicators which will only recognise papers published in journals that are on the approved lists.

Academics need to publish in order to advance professionally, get better jobs or secure tenure. Even within the halls of respectable academia, the difference between legitimate and fake publications and conferences is far blurrier than scholars would like to admit. Some canny operators have now realized that when standards are loose to begin with, there are healthy profits to be made in the grey areas of academe.

A German finance expert has warned that the country’s federal states could be entering a “dangerous race to the bottom” regarding legislation on transparency in cooperation between industry and higher education. He believes that cooperation agreements should be publicly accessible in order to guarantee academic freedom. The professor of finance and political economy at Aalen University, contested a contract between the University of Mainz and the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation, the country’s largest pharmaceutical company that also engages in research.