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Academic corruption exists in doctoral education even though this should reflect the highest standards of academic integrity. Doctoral degrees have become especially popular among politicians, state bureaucrats, civil servants and people seeking employment in academia. An entire market has formed in Ukraine that offers ghostwritten dissertations to order. This market consists of not only individuals but also officially registered firms. If in 2009, there were 16 such firms, by 2016 the number tripled, reaching 46.

The University College London (UCL) has declared that its Centre for Blockchain technologies has recently finalized a pilot program permitting MSc graduates in Financial Risk Management to offer immediate confirmation of the academic qualification via bitcoin. London-based startup Gradbase has developed a platform in which all graduates in 2016-2017 of the above course mention can register their degree credential. The validity of this information is verified by the school and followed by the system providing a transaction approving the genuineness of these degrees through bitcoin.

The president-to-be of Taiwan’s top higher education institution had been due to take up his post on 1 February after his selection to the top university position by a university committee in January. However, his taking of office has been delayed after it was revealed in January that he was an independent director of the board of a private company, and that the company’s vice chairman sat on the university selection committee. He has also been subjected to plagiarism allegations relating to a paper he presented at a conference in May 2017, but the university said in late January it would not formally investigate the claims.

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.