Vietnam's Research Retractions Expose Gaps Behind Its Scientific Publishing Boom

More Than 15,000 Papers a Year, With Growing Concerns About Quality

Vietnam publishes more than 15,000 scientific papers annually, yet it also ranks among the world's top 10 countries for research retractions. At a recent forum on research ethics in Ho Chi Minh City, specialists warned that the withdrawals expose weaknesses in research quality and oversight as the country's scientific output grows.

Nguyen Van Tuan, director of the Center for Health Technologies at the University of Technology Sydney, identified several reasons for papers being withdrawn: ethical breaches, weak research design, unreliable data, disputes over authorship and duplicate publication. The problem reaches beyond deliberate cheating to include how studies are planned, checked and reported.

Scientists publish findings in journals so other people can examine them and build on their discoveries. When a published paper has serious problems with accuracy or integrity, a journal can retract it, formally alerting readers that the work has been withdrawn from the scientific record.

Vietnam's difficulties are part of a wider international crisis. More than 10,000 research papers were retracted worldwide in 2023, a record. Retraction Watch, a database tracking withdrawals, has documented more than 39,000 retractions over the past decade, with numbers growing approximately 23% annually.

For Vietnam, the central concern is whether the systems supporting scientific work have kept pace with the pressure to publish. A growing number of papers can help establish an international academic presence. Reliable research also requires equipment, careful methods, sound data and institutions willing to investigate problems.

The forum brought those needs together: better funding, stronger training, clearer rules and a way to correct mistakes without discouraging researchers from admitting them.

Uneven Funding Leaves Researchers With Different Starting Points

Nguyen Van Phuoc, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Union of Science and Technology Associations, identified uneven investment between major universities and local institutions as a root cause of inconsistent research quality.

Vietnam's spending on scientific research remains low, particularly in fields that depend heavily on technology. Major institutions may have access to sophisticated equipment and international collaborations, while regional universities and research centers often lack basic infrastructure needed to produce reliable results that others can reproduce.

Reproducibility means that other researchers can follow a study's methods and obtain results consistent with its findings. Without suitable equipment, dependable records and carefully controlled procedures, that becomes harder to achieve.

Researchers working with fewer resources still face demands to publish for promotion, funding and institutional rankings. The combination can encourage rushed experiments, shortcuts and questionable practices. Where support for rigorous work is missing, pressure can also increase the temptation to fabricate data or plagiarize.

The phrase "publish or perish," coined by sociologist Logan Wilson in 1942, describes the career pressure behind this problem. Universities increasingly use publication rates to judge performance, giving researchers a strong incentive to keep producing papers even when a study needs more time or support.

Why Flawed Papers Can Cause Damage Beyond Academia

Government funding is wasted when it supports unreliable research. Other scientists can lose time and resources when they use faulty findings as the starting point for new work. In medicine and technology, the consequences can extend to decisions affecting people's lives.

Anesthesiologist Joachim Boldt accumulated nearly 90 retractions for fabricated data. His work may have harmed patients by promoting an unproven surgical treatment. The case illustrates why checking the research record matters beyond university rankings and academic careers.

A published finding can influence later studies long after it first appears. Correcting that record is therefore a practical responsibility: readers need to know which results they can use and which have serious problems.

Fabricated Data, Copied Text and Papers Sold for a Fee

Retraction Watch data indicate that nearly half of retractions globally involve problems with data authenticity, including fabrication and falsification. Fabrication means inventing data; falsification means changing data or research processes so that the reported results become misleading.

Plagiarism accounts for approximately 16% of retractions. Fake peer review has increased tenfold over the past decade. Peer review is the process in which other specialists assess a paper before publication; manipulating that process weakens an important check on research quality.

Businesses known as paper mills sell fake research papers. They may have produced up to 2% of all publications in 2022, creating another route through which unreliable work can enter journals.

Attempts to disguise copied material can produce language that makes little sense. In one poultry research case, authors copied a paper about broiler chickens but systematically replaced "broiler" with "grill." The resulting text included "grill mortality" and "American grill business."

Such "tortured phrases" have become warning signs for automated detection systems. They also show how efforts to conceal plagiarism can damage the meaning of a scientific paper, leaving readers with wording that no longer accurately describes the subject.

Authorship disputes and duplicate publication create further difficulties. Researchers may divide a body of data into the smallest possible publishable pieces or appear as authors on papers to which they made no substantive contribution. These practices dilute the scientific record and make it harder to understand who actually did the work.

Duplicate publication can also make the same research appear repeatedly in the literature. Together, these practices reward the appearance of productivity while making the origins and contribution of individual papers harder for readers to assess.

India Shows a Parallel Problem With Oversight

India ranks second globally in research retractions since 2022, and the percentage of its articles being withdrawn has risen sharply. Like Vietnam, it lacks centralized Research Integrity Offices to investigate misconduct, leaving inquiries to individual institutions.

Institutions conducting those investigations may have an interest in protecting their researchers and reputations. University Grants Commission guidelines in India stipulate minimal penalties even for substantial plagiarism, contributing to an environment in which misconduct carries limited consequences.

Vietnam and India illustrate pressures facing scientific communities that are expanding rapidly. Smaller or emerging research infrastructures appear to experience higher retraction rates relative to their output. Gaps in peer review, data management and ethical oversight leave institutions vulnerable to paper mills and predatory publishers.

University rankings add another incentive to increase publication counts. When institutions reward volume while checks remain weak, unreliable work has more opportunities to pass through. Addressing that pressure requires attention to how universities assess success as well as how journals screen submissions.

Training and Clearer Rules Are Part of the Response

Dang Van Phuoc, honorary rector of the University of Health Sciences in Ho Chi Minh City, identified weak critical thinking among students and researchers as a risk factor for flawed or misleading research.

Researchers need to examine whether their methods can answer the question they are asking, recognize weaknesses in their data and understand the limits of their conclusions. Without those skills, a study can fail under scrutiny even when its authors believe they have done sound work.

Le Cong Luong, a former senior official at the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations, called for a comprehensive approach to preventing ethical violations. His proposed response combines clearer legal frameworks, stronger accountability and wider training in research ethics.

Clear rules would establish consequences for misconduct. Accountability mechanisms would help ensure that suspected violations are investigated rather than ignored. Training would need to reach both scientists and academic managers, because institutions help set the incentives under which researchers work.

The European Association of Science Editors, known as EASE, has established a Vietnamese chapter. It provides translated resources, including ethics checklists, standard retraction forms and guidelines for authorship contributions.

Those tools give institutions practical ways to apply international standards. Authorship guidance can clarify who deserves credit; checklists can help identify ethical problems; standard forms can make withdrawals more consistent. Their effect depends on institutions adopting and using them.

Changing What Universities Reward

The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment advocates judging research by its quality and societal impact rather than by journal metrics such as impact factors. An impact factor is a journal measure used in assessments of academic work.

Applying that approach in Vietnam would mean giving greater weight to the substance of a study instead of relying on the reputation or numerical measures of the journal that published it. The proposed shift aims to reduce pressure for constant publication and give researchers more room for thorough investigations.

Digital publishing has made plagiarism easier, while software has improved the ability to detect copied text and manipulated images before publication. Journals can use these checks to identify problems before they lead to withdrawals.

Journal participation in correcting the record has also expanded. In 1997, 44 journals reported retractions. By 2016, that number had reached 488, more than ten times as many. Most journals, however, still publish retraction notices without adequate detail about who initiated the withdrawal or why it occurred, leaving responsibility unclear.

The developments span several decades:

• 1942: Sociologist Logan Wilson coined the phrase "publish or perish."
• 1997: Forty-four journals reported research retractions.
• 2016: The number of journals reporting retractions reached 488.
• 2022: Paper mills may have produced up to 2% of all publications; India ranks second globally in retractions since that year.
• 2023: More than 10,000 papers were retracted worldwide, setting a record.

Rising retraction totals reflect both problems in published research and improved efforts to detect them. Vietnam's response therefore needs reliable checks before publication and transparent correction afterward.

Making It Easier to Correct Honest Mistakes

Researchers may discover a serious error after their paper has been published. Fear of reputational damage can make them reluctant to seek a retraction, allowing other scientists to continue relying on flawed findings.

Some experts have proposed reducing the stigma attached to withdrawals and distinguishing misconduct from honest errors that require correction. The aim is to encourage researchers to flag problems before those problems spread through later work.

Chris Graf of the Committee on Publication Ethics, known as COPE, described the purpose of retraction as correcting the literature:

We need to be pretty clear that a retraction in the published literature is not the equivalent of, or a finding of, research misconduct. It is to serve a [different] purpose, which is to correct the published record.

Transparent notices help readers understand what went wrong and how the paper should be handled. They also allow institutions to respond to deliberate deception while giving researchers a workable route to acknowledge genuine mistakes.

Scientists are fallible. Methods can turn out to be flawed, honest errors occur and studies sometimes fail to replicate. A reliable research community needs procedures that address those problems openly while preserving accountability for misconduct.

Targeted Checks Could Help Vietnam Strengthen Its Research System

Vietnam's framework for scientific integrity has been incomplete until recent years. International screening tools and integrity standards are only now being widely adopted, creating an opportunity to strengthen oversight before the research enterprise expands further.

Funding agencies could ask applicants whether they have been involved in retracted papers. Databases such as Retraction Watch make that history easier to check. Any follow-up would need to examine the reason for a withdrawal and the researcher's role.

Retractions are concentrated among a relatively small group of authors. Globally, just 500 authors account for roughly one-quarter of all retractions. Among those 500, 100 researchers have 13 or more retracted papers each.

Those figures support targeted attention to repeated problems. Identifying patterns among researchers with multiple withdrawals could help institutions and funders prevent further damage to the literature.

Vietnam also needs dependable support for researchers who are trying to work carefully. Better infrastructure, stronger analytical training, clear authorship rules and credible investigations address different parts of the same problem: how to make reliable research the expected result of academic work.

The forum's proposals set out several possible responses, but no implementation timetable was given. The immediate task is to connect publication ambitions with the resources and safeguards needed to sustain them.

Vietnam's scientific reputation will depend on the quality of its research and its willingness to correct the record when problems emerge. Growth in publication numbers becomes more valuable when other researchers and the public can trust the work behind those numbers.

Key Points

• Vietnam publishes more than 15,000 scientific papers annually and ranks among the world's top 10 countries for research retractions.
• Withdrawals involve ethical breaches, weak study design, unreliable data, authorship disputes and duplicate publication.
• Low funding and uneven resources between institutions complicate efforts to produce reliable, reproducible research.
• Worldwide retractions exceeded 10,000 in 2023; Retraction Watch has recorded more than 39,000 over the past decade.
• Proposed responses include clearer legal rules, stronger investigations, ethics training and assessment based on research quality rather than publication metrics.
• Vietnam is adopting international screening tools and integrity standards, while transparent correction remains essential for both misconduct and honest mistakes.