KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia ranking sixth globally for countries with the highest rate of research papers being retracted is nothing to worry about, says Deputy Higher Education Minister Mustapha Sakmud.
He said the figure of 17.2 retracted articles for every 10,000 publications was “small” and the government had already established a special committee to address the problem.
“It is true that Malaysia has been ranked sixth (in the chart) but this is not a concern.
“We have worked to ensure that our researchers and their studies are scrutinised closely, starting from the university level until before publication.
“If there’s any issue about their papers, we will return the study (and it will not be published). The statistics show that (in Malaysia), only 17.2 articles out of 10,000 were retracted,” he said in responding to a supplementary question by Tan Hong Pin (PH-Bakri) in the Dewan Rakyat here yesterday.
Tan had earlier referred to an analysis by science journal Nature on research papers last year that found Malaysia ranked among the top eight countries with the most retractions.
The chart, showing the number of articles retracted per 10,000 publications in 2023, was topped by Saudi Arabia with 30.6 articles, followed by Pakistan (28.1 articles) and Russia (24.9 articles).
Mustapha also told the Dewan Rakyat that a special committee to oversee research papers before they are published in journals has been established to uphold quality and credibility.
He said the committee, which consists of experts from public universities, would study publication trends in “predatory journals” that were merely profit-based.
He added that the government had spent millions of ringgit paying such publishers that did not emphasise quality and have weak evaluation criteria.
