From Risk to Resilience: Guide to Improving RI² Standing
Global university rankings have created powerful incentives that can compromise research integrity. The Research Integrity Risk Index (RI²) benchmarks institutions on three components: articles in delisted journals, retractions, and self-citations. A fourth component (A-Rate, or the number of first/corresponding authors of retractions per 1,000 articles) will be added soon. These indicators do not capture every dimension of research integrity, but they reveal patterns strongly associated with reputational and structural risks. Poor RI² standing signals gaps in accountability that can undermine credibility, partnerships, and rankings. This guide highlights red flags and provides practical recommendations to help universities improve their RI² standing.
Early Warning Signs
- Research output growth far outpacing faculty capacity.
- Output clustered in fields disproportionately represented in the university’s structure.
- Significant drops in first or corresponding authorship rates.
- Emergence of individuals publishing at unsustainable levels (e.g., >40 papers/year).
- High or growing share of papers in predatory, low-quality, or delisted journals.
- Over-reliance on a small set of questionable venues.
- Excessive self-citations or reciprocal citation networks.
- Intensive ties with high-risk institutions.
- Over-concentration of collaboration within one region or a closed set of institutions.
- Increasing numbers of retractions, expressions of concern, or corrections.
Recommendations
Embed Integrity in Hiring:
- State the expectation of rigorous, ethical, and transparent research practices in job postings.
- Review short-listed candidates’ research portfolios for red flags before making an offer.
- Provide search committees with clear guidelines on how to assess research integrity.
Avoid High-Risk Venues and Ensure Integrity in APC Funding: Even if individual papers are legitimate, the association with high-risk, questionable, or delisted venues can damage visibility and evaluation outcomes. Universities should proactively guide faculty toward sustainable publishing practices.
- Audit recent publications in delisted venues, understand underlying motivations, and use findings to strengthen institutional guidance and support mechanisms.
- Integrate journal due diligence into the APC funding process to ensure that institutional support does not inadvertently encourage submissions to questionable venues.
- Communicate that such publications carry little or no weight in evaluations.
- Maintain and share an early-warning journal list or direct faculty to reputable external lists.
- Train and support faculty in venue due diligence; leverage librarians and research offices.
Exercise Caution in Co-Authorship: Co-authorship carries shared accountability. A portion of institutional integrity risks (e.g., retractions and publications in questionable journals) originates from projects where researchers have little oversight. To mitigate this:
- Assess collaborators, project integrity, and target venues before committing to co-authorship.
- Ensure co-authorship reflects a genuine intellectual contribution and full responsibility for the paper’s integrity. Decline honorary, guest, or gift authorship.
Reduce Retractions: Even a few can damage credibility. Institutions must prevent retractions and respond responsibly when they occur.
- Establish or strengthen research integrity offices with clear mandates.
- Make integrity indicators part of evaluation.
- Investigate root causes.
- Differentiate honest errors from misconduct.
- Ensure access to plagiarism and image-checking tools (e.g., iThenticate).
- Position research integrity as a strategic goal on par with rankings and funding.
Normalize Self-Citation: Self-citation is normal, but when rates are excessive or reciprocal networks emerge, it signals manipulation.
- Issue policies discouraging excessive self-citation and citation cartels.
- Monitor citation patterns annually, benchmark against peers, and share results.
Key Message
True, sustainable competitiveness is built on credibility and integrity.
- Benchmark against stable, low-risk institutions rather than peers engaged in gaming.
- Weave integrity and accountability into every strategy, from faculty recruitment and publishing practices to citation norms and institutional oversight.
Key References
ALLEA (2023). The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity – Revised Edition 2023. Berlin.
https://doi.org/10.26356/ECOC.
Edwards, M. A., & Roy, S. (2017). Academic Research in the 21st Century: Maintaining Scientific Integrity in a Climate of Perverse Incentives and Hypercompetition.
Environmental Engineering Science, 34(1), 51–61.
https://doi.org/10.1089/ees.2016.0223.
Kretser, A., …, & Yada, R. (2019). Scientific Integrity Principles and Best Practices: Recommendations from a Scientific Integrity Consortium.
Science and Engineering Ethics, 25(2), 327–355.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-019-00094-3.
Meho, L. I. (submitted revised version). Gaming the metrics: Bibliometric anomalies in global university rankings and the development of the Research Integrity Risk Index (RI²).
Mejlgaard, N., …, & Domaradzka-Widła, A. (2020). Research integrity: nine ways to move from talk to walk.
Nature, 586(7829), 358–360.
https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02847-8.
Moher, D., …, & Dirnagl, U. (2020). The Hong Kong principles for assessing researchers: Fostering research integrity.
PLOS Biology, 18(7), Article 3000737.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000737.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2017).
Fostering Integrity in Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
https://doi.org/10.17226/21896.