(1 Apr 2026) China’s science and technology awards system has been accused of being riddled with loopholes and misconduct, including serious exaggeration of achievements, cultivation of personal connections and even bribery, according to critics within the academic community. These flaws, though repeatedly addressed by the authorities, are said to remain deeply entrenched, casting a shadow over…
(30 Mar 2026) Chinese researchers have introduced a new methodology for evaluating medical and life science journals that moves beyond the traditional reliance on journal impact factors, in a development seen as part of wider efforts to strengthen the country’s “academic discourse power”. According to the South China Morning Post two new Dongbi Index journal lists –…
(18 Nov 2025) Traditional evaluation methods primarily rely on structured data and statistical indicators. While useful, they only provide a partial view of research outcomes and struggle with persistent challenges, including: Long timelines: outcomes may emerge years or decades after initial funding. Fragmented data: they operate in data silos, making it difficult to link funding decisions…
(23 Oct 2025) The Indian government’s university rankings, known as the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), have become the defining benchmark for excellence in Indian higher education a decade after they were launched, according to a recent report. Introduced by the Ministry of Education in 2015, NIRF has transformed how universities and colleges are…
(21 Aug 2024) The Nature Index 2024 South Korea supplement highlights the challenges that the country is facing in science and investment, including in research output and gender disparity – with only 23% of the research workforce being female, there is a major growth opportunity for the country to cement its place as leader in…
(9 Jul 2024) From Google Scholar Blog: Scholar Metrics provide an easy way for authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications. Today, we are releasing the 2024 version of Scholar Metrics. This release covers articles published in 2019–2023 and includes citations from all articles that were indexed in…
(22 May 2024) Predatory publishing is an issue across Europe, but is more of a problem in central and eastern European countries. “When I investigate or observe the situation in Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia, I see totally different patterns than in Belgium, France, Spain or the UK,” says Kulczycki, who is the author of a…
(7 Dec 2023) The UK’s next Research Excellence Framework has been delayed until 2029 amid concerns over plans to fully break the link between individual staff and university submissions. The exercise, whose results were due to be published in December 2028, will now conclude in the final month of 2029, it was announced on 7 December. …
(14 Nov 2023) A report released today aimed to provide a better understanding of how research assessment affects research in Australia. More than 1,000 Australian researchers and more than 50 research organisations participated in the survey. This included universities, research institutes, industry bodies, government and not-for-profit organisations. The majority of researchers (74%) were in academic roles.…
(7 Jun 2023) The commercial control of academic publishing and research infrastructure by a few oligopolistic companies has crippled the development of open access movement and interfered with the ethical principles of information access and privacy. In recent years, vertical integration of publishers and other service providers throughout the research cycle has led to platformisation,…