As a peer reviewer for several scientific journals, I have always prided myself on my commitment to upholding scientific integrity and research ethics. Sadly, on numerous occasions, I have faced the harsh reality: the pressure to publish or perish is leading to a rise in unethical research practices.

A few weeks ago, I received a request to review a manuscript. I accepted the request and immediately buried my head on my face reading the manuscript. It did not take long for me to realize that the manuscript was written in two voices. At first, I dismissed the issue because it had multiple authors – everyone has their writing style. But things got weirder and weirder.

I decided to read other articles on the topic and that’s when I got the shock of my life. The article was a lazy paraphrase of another article which was already in print. Using a plagiarism detector, my suspicions were confirmed. The article indeed significantly borrowed from other work without attribution – including the figures!

It is so easy to blame the authors – what they did was wrong and unethical. Sadly, we have a reward system that celebrates quantity over quality. Researchers are often evaluated by the number of publications they have rather than the quality of their work. With research funding dwindling across the globe, most researchers are being literary asked to turn water into wine.

How can you do high impact research without the necessary research tools and funds? It even gets more ridiculous; you can’t get funding if you don’t have publications in the area that you’re seeking funding. So, it’s a case of the rich gets richer.

With the pressure to publish more papers and secure funding at an all-time high, researchers are turning to questionable methods to get ahead. From “salami slicing” their research, or breaking it down into smaller chunks to publish more papers, to outright plagiarism and data manipulation, the incentive to cheat is stronger than ever.

As I grappled with this realization, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of disappointment and betrayal. I had always believed in the purity of the scientific process, but now I saw that it was being corrupted not only by greed and unbridled ambition, but by systems that think exclusion is a measure of excellence.

But my disappointment soon turned to determination. I knew that I had a responsibility to do everything in my power to stamp out these unethical practices and uphold the integrity of the peer-review process.

Problems like predatory publishing, plagiarism, salami slicing, and others are mere symptoms of a broken system of recognition and reward. Treating the symptoms will not solve the problem, a new symptom will crop up and we will be battling that one too.