Ghost Affiliations

An exposé on "ghost affiliations," a shadow economy where universities buy the names of high-impact researchers to artificially boost global rankings.

The Research Iron Curtain: Mapping the New Geopolitics of Knowledge

The descent of a "Research Iron Curtain" is fracturing the global academy, forcing a stark choice between the resilience of open collaboration and the stagnation of scientific isolation.

Mutual Admiration Society: Distinguishing Citation Cartels from Intellectual Soulmates

In academia’s “Mutual Admiration Society,” citation cartels secretly inflate metrics by swapping citations. This new framework distinguishes fraudulent cliques from genuine intellectual soulmates using statistical evidence from OpenAlex data.

The Hall of Mirrors: Decoding the Rise and Fall of Academic Self-Citation

Academic self-citation exists at the complex intersection of scholarly transparency and strategic metric inflation, prompting a crucial distinction between legitimate knowledge building and system manipulation.

Are Your Academic Partnerships Actually Hurting Your Research?

Not all academic partnerships are created equal. Dive into the data behind global collaboration to learn why some institutions thrive together, why over 20% of partnerships fail to deliver, and …

Five Types of Citation Gaming: Data-Driven Taxonomy for Research Integrity and Academic Fraud

Citation Gaming is the systematic and unethical inflation of metrics. We define 5 types of academic fraud.