Scientometric indicators in research evaluation and research misconduct: analysis of the Russian university excellence initiative

Abstract This study aimed to examine the impact of the Russian University Excellence Initiative (RUEI), also known as Project 5–100, on research misconduct in Russian higher education. Launched in 2013, the RUEI incentivized universities to increase the number of publications in internationally indexed journals. The analysis compares the prevalence of retracted publications—as a proxy for research misconduct—between universities that participated in the RUEI and a control group of universities that did not. A total of 2621 retracted papers affiliated with at least one Russian institution were identified. Of which 203 papers were indexed in Web of Science (WoS) and/or Scopus databases. The results showed that RUEI universities had a significantly higher number of retracted publications in WoS- and Scopus-indexed journals, suggesting that pressure to meet quantitative scientometric indicators may have encouraged unethical research practices and research misconduct. In addition, different reasons for retraction were found between publications indexed and not indexed in WoS and/or Scopus databases. These findings suggest that the direct and irresponsible use of scientometric indicators as performance measures may have unintended negative consequences that may undermine research integrity.