India produces a considerable volume of research, but does not always produce research that shapes global scientific thinking
India is now among the world’s largest producers of scientific papers, but concerns over quality are growing. Retractions, plagiarism, fraudulent peer review and repetitive studies raise serious questions about the research ecosystem. The challenge is not merely to produce more researchers, but to build a culture that values original inquiry over recycled ideas
India's contribution of 16,18,824 research papers in Scopus-indexed journals between 2020 and 2025 is reported to be the highest in the world. However, between 2024 and 2026, India managed to score only 19 to 16 on the h-index on productivity and impact measures, with only a few research papers receiving the highest citations in their respective fields. This contribution brought with it an increasing number of retractions on grounds of errors, plagiarism and other ethical reasons. 887 Indian research papers reported to be retracted by the Retraction Watch Report, 2025 brought India to the second position after China. Such retractions have raised concerns for NIRF assessment, leading to a closer examination of research data submitted by higher educational institutions. In this context, the question naturally arises: how do we assess the quality of an academic in India?
Is it through teaching, research or the number of research publications? Though the quality of an academic can be assessed on the basis of teaching, research and administrative skills, including institutional contributions and student engagement, the Indian higher education system has disproportionately focused on research publications in Scopus journals. The primary reason could be the sudden desire to achieve national and global rankings. Global rankings depend upon Scopus or Web of Science data, which indexes journals and measures the quality of an academician on the basis of his digital footprint on such databases. UGC Regulations for Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers in Higher Education, 2018 tied research and publications to faculty recruitment and promotions to encourage research excellence. But a few universities went beyond and enhanced the minimum criteria for promotions by tying publications to such indexes.
Even institutional funding or government funding for research projects is frequently tied to them. This has prioritised volume over publication in good quality journals giving a potential to predatory publishing market. As a result, India was found to have published around 10% of Scopus articles, with over 164,000 articles published in suspected predatory journals in a scientometric study conducted by Machálek and Srholec in 2019. The race to secure an ever-increasing number of publications in specified indexes resulted in academic contribution being measured primarily in numerical terms, rather than quality, originality or significance of the research.
Whether such publications helped students gain a deeper insight into any subject barely entered into consideration. A scholar was only as good as the number of publications in their name in a few specified indexes. This numerical yardstick was applied with escalating intensity to academics across all career stages. A university may nurture scholars who publish papers, but such publications do not necessarily guarantee that they can stimulate students to understand, think, question, and critically analyse.
Research not only refers to writing articles in a certain time frame but being able to identify what questions are worth raising, distinguishing a new point from an old argument and recognising the limits of one's own conclusions. This essentially brings into focus the importance of teaching in universities. The original argument was that only a good researcher could be a good teacher, since one necessarily feeds into the other. Universities are required to balance research and teaching requirements. Linking career advancement with research publications definitely has an impact on teaching. Preparing for classes, giving proper feedback to students, mentoring and developing good teaching strategies might not be considered important despite being crucial to teaching. Marie Clarke et al in their 2023 survey in Irish universities on Early -career STEM faculty members' perceptions of their teaching praxis, found that greater recognition was given to research, but experiments with different teaching practices were not acknowledged.
The focus on research in the institutional reward and promotion system presented one of the consistent sources of stress to teachers. It is also pertinent to examine whether produced research is translating into knowledge production and its dissemination. Neither the publications of researchers are made available for public consumption nor do universities have institutional repositories where such papers can be accessed. European universities have begun moving away from Scopus-indexed and Web of Science journals. In 2024, Sorbonne University, France, discontinued its subscription to Clarivate's bibliometric tools, including Web of Science and Elsevier's Scopus.
The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment is encouraging its members to leave metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor and research organisations' rankings. This is an opportunity for the Indian higher education system to re-strategise and strengthen its own publication opportunities. India has a limited number of quality journals across disciplines. Even UGC had withdrawn its CARE list of recognised journals in 2025. According to UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar, the UGC-CARE list faced challenges, including over-centralisation. Many high-quality journals were not included in the list in comparison to those included. The reform for recognising teaching in academic career pathways and reward systems is being proposed worldwide, even in research-intensive universities.
The Teaching Cultures Survey (TCS), 2026, conducted in collaboration of 17 research-intensive universities from 9 countries, shows how participant universities are engaged or are planning for reforms by setting up new standards in university teaching, redesigning all academic career pathways, education-focused pathways and introducing pedagogical merit systems. India's overall scientific output grew rapidly between 2014 and 2023 with an average annual growth rate of 36%.
Though the law remained a specialised and underrepresented category, it is time to ponder the organic growth of research in law universities. The significance of competent faculty, a proper working environment and research opportunities, as aimed at by the National Education Policy, 2020, requires the higher education system to go beyond the simple accumulation of scholarly products.
It must resist the temptation to develop into a system where academic merit is measured solely on publications, ignoring the development of the quality of teaching.
Research not only refers to writing articles in a certain time frame but being able to identify what questions are worth raising, distinguishing a new point from an old argument and recognising the limits of one's own conclusions. This essentially brings into focus the importance of teaching in universities
India has a large pool of scientific talent, & prestigious research institutions
The bottom line
India has built scale: tens of thousands of PhDs a year, more than a lakh patent filing, and a growing global research presence. The next leap requires a cultural reset-making curiosity, rigour, honesty, and usefulness the measures of success-so that India's research system produces knowledge the world can trust and use
What must change
India does not need fewer researchers; it needs better-designed research careers and stronger institutional accountability.
Reward originality, not volume: Fund and promote researchers for reproducible, consequential work-not merely the number of Scopus or Web of Science papers.
Protect doctoral research time: Provide stable fellowships, realistic timelines, adequate lab access, and supervision ratios that allow deep work rather than paper-churning.
Reform publication incentives: End cash-for-publication schemes and make data availability, methods transparency, preregistration where appropriate, and ethics clearance part of evaluation.
Invest in research infrastructure: Expand shared instrumentation, computational facilities, open-data systems, and technical staff beyond a few elite campuses.
Build university research capacity: Channel funding and mentorship to state universities and colleges, not only legacy elite institutes.
Strengthen peer review and integrity: Create independent research-integrity cells, mandatory plagiarism and image-integrity checks, and credible punishment for misconduct.
Link research to problems: Encourage PhDs and patents that address health, agriculture, climate, manufacturing, digital public infrastructure, and local industrial needs.
Measure outcomes, not inputs: Track replication, citations from independent groups, technology transfer, clinical or field validation, startups, and public benefit-not filings alone.
Research: Quality matters
Originality: Too much emphasis on incremental work rather than breakthrough discoveries
Citation impact: Research does not always influence subsequent global scholarship
Institutional reputation: A relatively small number of Indian institutions enjoy strong international recognition
Research funding: Limited resources for expensive, long-term and high-risk research
Patents and innovation: Gaps between laboratory discoveries and commercially successful technologies
Why Indian research struggles to earn global recognition
The central paradox is that India produces a considerable volume of research, but does not always produce research that shapes global scientific thinking, influences policy or leads to major technological breakthroughs. Here are the major gaps:
Inadequate investment in research
This is perhaps the most fundamental weakness. India spends substantially less on R&D, relative to the size of its economy, than countries that lead global scientific research.
· India's R&D expenditure was 0.84% of GDP in 2023-24, according to the latest government statistics available.
· Research funding remains inadequate for expensive experiments, long-term projects, advanced laboratories and interdisciplinary work.
The problem is not simply the amount allocated but also the timely availability and effective utilisation of funds. Researchers often spend considerable time navigating administrative procedures instead of conducting research.
Universities are largely teaching institutions, not research centres
One of India's biggest structural weaknesses is that research is not deeply embedded in its university system.
In leading research economies, universities are centres of original discovery, innovation and intellectual debate. In India, a large number of universities remain preoccupied with teaching, examinations, admissions and administrative responsibilities.
Research is concentrated in a relatively small number of institutions, including the IITs, IISc, selected central universities and specialised laboratories.
Many state universities lack:
· Well-equipped laboratories.
· Adequate research grants.
· Qualified research supervisors.
· International academic collaborations.
· Research-oriented leadership.
The result is an uneven research ecosystem in which talent outside a handful of elite institutions often struggles to find opportunities.
Prof. (Dr.) Harpreet Kaur is Vice-Chancellor, National Law University, Jodhpur; Views presented are personal.