Canada’s academic landscape is ground zero for a disturbing boom in fake and second-rate academia. A recent statistical analysis by The New York Times underscores this disturbing trend. This study highlights an obvious but urgent need for greater oversight and transparency in Canadian universities, especially where research integrity is concerned. Gengyan Tang, a prominent figure in academic ethics, emphasizes that universities exercise the least oversight where it is most critical.
From April 2024 to March 2025, the secretariat indicated it was dealing with 114 cases of research misconduct. Of the 51 resolved cases, 29 included at least one breach, which sometimes led to letters of awareness or reprimand. This calls into serious question the adequacy of current measures aimed at upholding research integrity in Canada.
Lisa Given, a former director of the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology at the University of Alberta, points out the complexities surrounding peer reviews in academic publishing. Those concrete responsibilities that should come with these reviews are sometimes ignored, she adds.
“If you’re going to have to cut corners, or you have to contain your time, it’s probably going to be on things that you’re volunteering to do, rather than things your employer is paying you to do.” – Lisa Given
Into this difficult landscape has come Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch, to raise awareness. He exposes the toxic, systemic issues that have infected Canadian academic institutions. In December, Rescuing Oransky also laid testimony when he appeared before the House of Commons’ Science and Research Committee. He provocatively asserted that we are looking at two percent or more of published research being focused on gaming academic metrics rather than advancing knowledge.
In 2010, the Council of Canadian Academies stepped up. To address these persistent malpractices, they called for the establishment of Canadian Council for Research Integrity. Nevertheless, when the government finally released its response, it ignored this particular recommendation, leaving Canada without an independent national watchdog focused on research integrity.
Oransky’s concerns go beyond the numbers. He calls out Canada for its lack of transparency on retractions. As reported in Retraction Watch’s retraction database, Canadian institutions have been associated with more than 900 retractions in the last 52 years. This disconnect makes it that much harder to work against a culture of research fraud.
“When you have a system where universities are the ones investigating their own [researchers] — most people wouldn’t find that reasonable in corporate culture, and there are laws against that.” – Ivan Oransky
Catherine Paquet is the director of the Office of Research Ethics and Integrity at the University of Ottawa. She understands the very real obstacles to conducting equitable peer review. She observes that the act of peer reviewing journal articles has become an expected measure of professional service and a vital service to our scholarly community.
Oransky highlights a clear and systematic overhaul of how research misconduct is dealt with in Canada. He concludes that there is a systemic unwillingness to hold scientific fraud accountable in the same way we would with any other type of fraud.
“People have been very reluctant to treat scientific fraud like other fraud.” – Ivan Oransky
The increasing sophistication of research misconduct is particularly clear in the case of new wrongdoings like citation cartels. Oransky further details how these networks are able to hide the real quality of research.
“It gets even more complex — and a little bit harder to track — where [fraudsters] have these … citation cartels, where people actually organize citation rings.” – Ivan Oransky
Given’s commentary about the pressures and constraints researchers face only adds to this discussion. For instance, she notes that reading and commenting on journal articles is considered routine administrative work for academics. When weighed against their other obligations, it can seem daunting.
“Researchers are expected to do administrative tasks … reviewing journal articles would be part of that.” – Catherine Paquet
Yet there are almost no rigorous oversight mechanisms to create an environment where low-quality studies can’t quickly spread misinformation. Tang makes the point again that what universities need to provide is greater transparency with respect to retractions and misconduct investigations.
The implications of these findings are profound. Canada’s academic community has been actively wrestling with these issues. The long-term threat to public trust in scientific research cannot be overstated.
