CHENNAI: Anna University has finally topped a global list. However, the state has little to cheer as the university bagged the ‘honour’ for the highest number of research papers retracted.As many as 161 research articles published by engineering colleges affiliated to Anna University from 2019 to 2024 were retracted by the research journals in 2025. Of these articles, nearly 50% were from computer science and information technology domains.Unreliable results, concerns about references, computer-generated content, and compromised peer review were cited as reasons for the withdrawal, according to the India Research Watch, a research watchdog that released the numbers quoting Retraction Watch Database.The total number of research articles sent to journals for publication is not available now.It is not just engineering colleges. Prominent deemed universities such as Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences (SIMATS), VIT Vellore, and SRM Institute of Technology (SRIMIST) also featured in the list of universities that had the most retractions in 2025, the database showed.“Retraction of research articles is only a symptom, and it shows the flawed metrics of National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF),” said Achal Agrawal, founder of India Research Watch.NIRF gives greater emphasis to research publication, which increased the number of publications from across the country. “NIRF introduced a retraction penalty last year. But the penalties are mild. There is an urgent need to change how we evaluate our universities and researchers,” he added.AI-generated content is emerging as a major problem for research journals. But there are no common guidelines. “Every publisher and journal has its own policy regarding AI usage. Some journals ban the use of AI completely, while some allow it for polishing the language. A lot of retractions due to computer-generated content happen because the use was not declared. AI also hallucinates fake references, which were detected by journals,” Agrawal said.“To produce a research paper, it takes one to two years of rigorous research. In some colleges, even students on master’s and bachelor’s degrees are publishing research papers with fudged data. There are flaws with many journals, too, as there is no real peer review in those journals,” said Moumita Koley, DST-Centre for Policy Research, IISc, Bangalore.Anna University’s former vice-chancellor M K Surappa said the retraction data was very shocking and asked the university to set up a research integrity office to look into the quality of publications and retractions.He dubbed retraction as a research misconduct. “In India, it has reached epidemic proportions and can no longer be ignored,” Surappa said.Anna University registrar (in charge) V Kumaresan said the university would convene the research board to chalk out new guidelines for the affiliated colleges.“As of now, the university departments and constituent colleges were not involved in the retractions. The university is not overseeing the research publication. But we will form new regulations,” he said.“SIMATS is among the few institutions in India with a designated research integrity officer and stringent research governance policies. Retractions associated with SIMATS are predominantly procedural in nature and are issued by journals under established publishing norms, rather than arising from data manipulation,” an official statement from SIMATS said.“Given SIMATS’ substantially higher publication volume compared to peer institutions, citing absolute retraction numbers without proportional context is misleading. When evaluated as a percentage of total output, the retraction rate remains within global norms,” it added.VIT vice-chancellor B S Kanchana Bhaskaran said those retracted articles were from the special editions of research journals. “They will not receive peer review. Later, the entire special editions were withdrawn. It is affecting some genuine faculty members as well. The percentage of retracted papers is very low when compared to published papers from our institute,” she said.SRMIST was not available for comment.
