India’s quiet redrawing of research integrity’s accountability chain

Earlier this week, the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), India’s apex research funding body, announced that grant applicants for its Advanced Grant Research program must now disclose any paper retractions from the past five years (see Section I on page 7 of this call for proposals). The mandate aims to enhance research integrity and deter unethical practices, but the implications can be far-reaching depending on how the plan will be implemented. Some context may be helpful to understand why this was necessary. Although India accounts for only approximately 5% of the world’s indexed research output, it ranks third globally for life science paper retractions over the past four decades.