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The reforms of the education system during the last few decades have reshaped the landscape of education all across the world. However, the institutes of higher education are deteriorating in quality of both research and creativity. Papers by researchers from reputed institutions have found their way into bogus journals. Even, a survey found that a large amount of research misconduct goes unreported. Although this, research fraud is not a new phenomenon, it has a long history and arguably it has existed since the dawn of science. A survey published in June, 2020 noted that gift authorship, where researchers who made little or no contributions to a study are included as co-authors, is perceived to be the most common type of research fraud. There was a time when institutions produced talent in the fields of different subjects. However, there is a lot of things which have gone awry with our institutes of higher learning. Research is a global enterprise. In order to prevent and minimize research misconduct, a global operationalization with clear boundaries and clear criteria would be helpful. The other big problem plaguing our institutes is sheer absence of any research policy. There are stories of research scholars ferrying children of their guides from school, cooking food for the family of their guides, and sometimes within campuses washing cars of their guides. Universities and research organizations typically have their own guidelines on research integrity and responsible conduct of research, and their own procedures to investigate cases of research misconduct. One obvious difficulty is that they have to investigate themselves which may lead to protecting their own reputation leading to a lack of transparency. The result is the piling of sycophant scholars over more sycophant scholars and in between talent goes down the drain. What led to this downfall? It is amazing how the rotten system inside our universities actually lets the talent go to waste and is not able to spawn an environment of quality research. It has come to such a pass that there is literally no place for men of integrity in our universities.
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