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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.

It is estimated that the ‘professional essay writing industry’ – services offering to quickly complete any assignment, to any standard, for a fee – is now worth over £100m, providing completed assignments to tens of thousands of students at UK universities every year. And where once it was mainly international students looking to produce work with a better standard of English, it’s a growing trend among stressed native speakers too. One of the largest companies, has seen the number of UK customers increase by a fifth over the last two years.

Ways in which students cheat are either ingenious or surprisingly obvious. Why do students cheat, and risk having to retake a module, having their degree classification lowered, or even being kicked out of university? There are many reasons – including financial pressure, poor organisational skills and panic – sometimes among young people who should never have gone to university in the first place or, at the very least, who should have had more support structures in place when they started.

A recent investigation into plagiarism in higher education by the Quality Assurance Agency found hundreds of companies are regularly producing papers for students to pass off as their own. And only last year, an advertising campaign saw posters for an essay mill prominently placed around the London Underground – particularly at tube stops near university campuses. Often involving students paying hundreds of pounds for written-to-order papers, this behaviour became known as “contract cheating” after research published in 2006. It remains one of the major challenges in preserving academic integrity across higher education.

Contributors offer their thoughts on the universities watchdog calling for a crackdown on essay plagiarism sites. They offer various solutions to this increasingly common issue, including making the offer of such services illegal, reducing the number of assessment tasks students are required to complete, putting the focus on classroom exams rather than essays, and enabling teachers to have a more accurate knowledge of student’s capabilities so that they are able to spot work that is not of that student’s usual standard.

The independent quality body for higher education in the United Kingdom, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education or QAA, has issued new guidance on how to combat 'contract cheating', where students pay a company or individual to produce work that they then pass off as their own. The companies involved – typically using a website to promote themselves and receive orders – are often dubbed ‘essay mills’, but services provided may include not just essays or other assignments, but conducting research and impersonation in exams. While there is a common perception that students studying in another language are more likely to cheat than domestic students, there is currently “no UK data to support this view”.

A 23-year-old man, residing a stone's throw from Lyon, was arrested on Tuesday morning, 3 October, for trying to fool the higher education scholarship system. During the 2016-2017 school year, the young man had received government money based on the establishment he claimed to be attending the conditions he had declared. The problem was that the student had falsified his university registration document, and Crous, which manages student grants, came to realize it.

More than 100 Greek university students have been caught in a mass cheating scandal. The group at the University of Patras, most of them first-year students, submitted the same paperwork in four separate coursework exercises, the head of the business management department said. The university banned the 106 students from sitting the rest of their exams in September. According to an associate professor, of all the possible sanctions, this is the mildest. Greek universities are ranked among the lowest in the European Union, plagued by student protests, staffing nepotism and poor infrastructure.