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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.

One of the most prolific scientists in an emerging area of cancer research involving what is sometimes called the “dark matter” of the human genome has parlayed his decades-long pursuit of cancer remedies into a research empire: He has received more than $86 million in federal grants as a principal investigator and, by his own count, more than 60 awards. However, over the last several years a tide of allegations have been made concerning data falsification and other scientific misconduct. Concerns about falsified data in the scientific literature run far deeper as cases of fraud can reverberate through whole fields of research.

Zimbabwean police arrested the Higher Education, Science and Technology Minister and his deputy on Wednesday for allegedly misappropriating around US$450,000 from a manpower development fund that finances students, among other activities. The politicians were questioned and released. Days before his arrest the minister – a former politics professor at the University of Zimbabwe and researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, which accused him of embezzling research funds – issued a statement denying any wrongdoing.

Ethics is not always dealing with ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, but may sometimes be a choice of a lesser of evils, a nuanced decision dealing with trade-offs or viewed as situational. How do we better equip students to better understand ethical dilemmas and how to approach them? EthicalSystems.org, collects and shares research on ethics which spans a wide variety of topics, including accounting, cheating and honesty, contextual influences, corporate culture, corporate governance, corruption, decision-making, leadership and teaching ethics, among others.

Every researcher in the Netherlands is to be questioned about whether they have committed research misconduct or engaged in “sloppy science” as part of a major national effort to bolster scientific standards. In response to rising concerns over a “reproducibility crisis” in science and a series of high-profile fraud cases in the Netherlands, the country is to commit 8 million euros ($9 million) to understanding the problem, finding solutions and trying to reproduce critical studies.

The independence of Swiss universities from the corporate world has again been called into question as details of pharmaceutical sponsorship deals were broadcast by Swiss public television, SRF. The programme found evidence that one firm may have manipulated academic research data. SRF research shows financial links between pharma giants and several leading universities. The most damning revelation is that one group demanded to see research every three months and reserved the right to make “acceptable alterations” to results.

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.

Several universities are being threatened with tough penalties for allegedly providing data that would artificially boost their performance on prestigious research rankings used to allocate government funding. The Australian Research Council has written stern letters to several universities warning them they face punishments for providing misleading data for their research excellence assessments, including prosecution under Commonwealth law.

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.

Education Minister wants to make universities more accountable for how they spend their money after it was revealed billions of dollars a year are redirected from teaching to research. A report by the Grattan Institute found that universities report the $26 billion they spend each year in an "opaque" way, concluding: "Australia needs a more transparent system for reporting how universities spend their money."