Comments
Prof.Dr.Sami Ali Metwally
16 December, 2025
Safeguarding research integrity requires collective responsibility from researchers, editors, and institutions. Evidence-based reforms and transparent editorial practices are key to restoring trust in scientific publishing.
Mohammad-Reza Bayati
16 December, 2025
This is an excellent, insightful, and balanced article that both clearly and statistically demonstrates the problems and presents promising, evidence-based solutions. Its main message is that scientific integrity is not a static entity, but a dynamic ecosystem that requires active design, collective participation, and continuous improvement of structures.
The article emphasizes that positive change is possible, but it requires collective determination from researchers, institutions, policymakers, and journals. In my opinion, this article can be a valuable roadmap for research directors, journal editors, and even PhD students to contribute to building a healthier scientific environment.
Thank you for raising such a profound issue.
Jufri Darma
17 December, 2025
The prevalence of research integrity and academic ethics violations in developing countries should be understood as a consequence of structural pressures embedded within contemporary scholarly publishing systems. The mandatory requirement to publish in reputable international journals as a prerequisite for academic promotion, while intended to enhance research quality and global visibility, often functions as an exclusionary and burdensome policy. In practice, this requirement shifts academic priorities from the pursuit of rigorous and socially relevant scholarship toward the fulfillment of administrative targets.
Limited proficiency in academic English, combined with the high costs of translation, proofreading, and article processing charges, renders scholarly publishing increasingly dependent on financial capacity rather than intellectual merit. This environment has facilitated the growth of unethical practices, including the use of commercial manuscript-writing services and the commodification of publication by journal managers operating under the label of “reputable” outlets. The problem is further exacerbated when publication copyrights are not retained by authors, thereby weakening scholars’ ownership and control over their intellectual contributions.
At the same time, insufficient state recognition and utilization of research outputs—whether in policy formulation, academic incentives, or sustained research support—reinforces the perception that publication serves merely as an administrative obligation. Within such an ecosystem, research integrity becomes vulnerable to compromise, and academic ethics risk being reduced to procedural formalities.
Therefore, meaningful reform of scholarly publishing policies is imperative. Governments and higher education institutions should promote inclusive and equitable publication models, particularly no-fee or diamond open access journals, strengthen high-quality national and regional journals, and shift academic performance evaluations away from publication counts toward research quality, societal impact, and ethical scholarly practices. Such reforms would not only mitigate unethical behavior but also foster a culture of integrity and restore the fundamental purpose of scholarly publication as an expression of intellectual honesty and academic responsibility.
Sirajo MOHAMMED FUNTUA
17 December, 2025In developing nations, research integrity and reliability depend on ethical standards and availability and accessibility to funding by the researchers. Also, in developed nations, research interest interest and target are the key factors that anchors the integrity of a study outcome. There is a need for synergy between researchers across the globe towards ensuring the integrity of research publication so that public confidence can be endured and/or restored.
Lammifyad
16 December, 2025Great, it is the intersting article