About RI²
What is RI²? It is the world’s first empirically grounded, composite metric designed to identify and profile institutional-level risks to research integrity. Developed by Professor Lokman Meho (لقمان محّو) at the American University of Beirut, RI² was created in response to growing concerns about how global university rankings incentivize volume- and citation-based publishing at the expense of scholarly integrity.
What does RI² do? It evaluates institutions based on three independent, verifiable indicators:
(1) D-Rate, the percentage of an institution’s publications appearing in journals that were recently removed from Scopus or Web of Science for failing to meet quality or publishing standards; and
(2) R-Rate, the number of retracted articles per 1,000 publications, capturing evidence of serious methodological, ethical, or authorship violations.
(3) S-Rate, the percentage of citations to an institution’s articles that originate from the same institution, emphasizing citation practices aimed at artificially boosting institutional metrics rather than reflecting genuine scholarly influence.
Although each RI² component is formally calculated based on the two most recent full calendar years (e.g., 2023-2024 for the 2025 edition), the actual data collection occurs in November-December of the year RI² is published. This approach effectively extends the coverage window to nearly three years, maximizing the inclusion of relevant records and citations and ensuring greater completeness and timeliness of assessment.
These indicators are normalized and averaged to produce a 0-1 score, which places each institution into one of five risk tiers (from Red Flag to Low Risk) based on a fixed reference group of the 1,000 most publishing universities worldwide. Visitors can view the full methodology and explore the current institutional rankings and risk tier classifications.
RI² is diagnostic, not punitive. A “red flag” or “high-risk” designation is not an accusation of misconduct, but rather a signal to reflect, investigate, and strengthen institutional safeguards. It is intended to encourage constructive reform and informed dialogue, especially in systems where structural and contextual challenges affect research governance.
Why RI² matters? Traditional rankings emphasize productivity and citation volume, often overlooking questionable practices such as publishing in predatory or delisted journals, inflating output through multi-affiliations, gaming citations through self-citations and reciprocal networks, and delegating intellectual leadership to external authors.
RI² shifts the focus from quantity to integrity, offering a conservative, transparent, and globally benchmarked tool that highlights structural vulnerabilities often missed by mainstream metrics.
Who should use RI²? It is intended for use by universities seeking to assess and strengthen research governance and capacity-building, ranking agencies aiming to incorporate integrity-based safeguards, funders and regulators evaluating institutional reliability and risk, and journalists, watchdogs, and academics committed to improving scholarly accountability.
Explore the data: In addition to institutional rankings and tier classifications, RI² offers an interactive world map displaying average national scores. This tool allows users to visualize global and regional trends in research integrity risk and identify geographic patterns of concern or resilience.
What is next?: The RI² platform is continually evolving to meet the growing demand for transparency, accountability, and rigor in global research assessment. The next major update, scheduled for release in late 2025, will introduce several key enhancements:
- Inclusion of the number of hyper-prolific authors for each institution.
- Integration of Shanghai Rankings: Institutional profiles on the RI² platform will include Shanghai Ranking results, allowing users to contextualize integrity risks alongside more traditional research performance metrics.