Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Meet the founder of a 100,000-strong Facebook group driving change in scientific integrity in Vietnam
https://retractionwatch.com/2024/10/31/meet-the-founder-of-a-100000-strong-facebook-group-driving-change-in-scientific-integrity-in-vietnam/Retraction Watch has become a very strong and good voice in the fight against fraud in the scientific publishing community.
Retraction Watch readers may have noticed an uptick of items in the RW Daily and Weekend Reads about scientific integrity issues in Vietnam over the past year. Many of those items had their genesis, and were circulated, on a Facebook group that now has close to 100,000 members — and was recently removed temporarily by Facebook. We asked Van Tu Duong, a researcher at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, who founded the group, to tell us more about the history of the effort. This email interview has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.
Tell us about this history of the group. Why did you find it, and when?
The group was founded on September 1, 2020, in response to a series of investigative articles published by Thanh Nien, a leading Vietnamese newspaper. These articles revealed deceptive practices at Ton Duc Thang University (TDTU) and Duy Tan University (DTU), where foreign authors were paid substantial sums to falsely affiliate with these institutions in their scientific publications. This scheme, which persisted for over a decade, allowed TDTU and DTU to artificially boost their research output and rankings, often surpassing Vietnam’s most prestigious universities.
The revelations sparked significant debate among scientists, university leaders, and the public. However, Thanh Nien faced backlash for allegedly attempting to discredit institutions that many viewed as sources of national pride due to their high international rankings. As a scientist invested in the Vietnamese academic community, I felt compelled to seek the truth, as neither side presented well-substantiated arguments. By analyzing prolific authors affiliated with TDTU and DTU, I discovered a network of hyper-prolific foreign authors publishing extensively with varying affiliations and topics, some of whom appeared on The Retraction Watch Leaderboard.
I contributed an article to Thanh Nien, sharing data that illustrated the extent of this fraudulent activity. I referred to these authors as “foreign invaders in science,” highlighting their role in undermining scientific integrity. Recognizing the need for collective action, I sought support from the Vietnamese scientific community to investigate and expose this network. The group was formed on the day my article was published, initially named “Fighting Foreign Invaders in Science.” However, we later renamed it to reflect our broader focus on scientific integrity.
The group was founded on September 1, 2020, in response to a series of investigative articles published by Thanh Nien, a leading Vietnamese newspaper. These articles revealed deceptive practices at Ton Duc Thang University (TDTU) and Duy Tan University (DTU), where foreign authors were paid substantial sums to falsely affiliate with these institutions in their scientific publications. This scheme, which persisted for over a decade, allowed TDTU and DTU to artificially boost their research output and rankings, often surpassing Vietnam’s most prestigious universities.
The revelations sparked significant debate among scientists, university leaders, and the public. However, Thanh Nien faced backlash for allegedly attempting to discredit institutions that many viewed as sources of national pride due to their high international rankings. As a scientist invested in the Vietnamese academic community, I felt compelled to seek the truth, as neither side presented well-substantiated arguments. By analyzing prolific authors affiliated with TDTU and DTU, I discovered a network of hyper-prolific foreign authors publishing extensively with varying affiliations and topics, some of whom appeared on The Retraction Watch Leaderboard.
I contributed an article to Thanh Nien, sharing data that illustrated the extent of this fraudulent activity. I referred to these authors as “foreign invaders in science,” highlighting their role in undermining scientific integrity. Recognizing the need for collective action, I sought support from the Vietnamese scientific community to investigate and expose this network. The group was formed on the day my article was published, initially named “Fighting Foreign Invaders in Science.” However, we later renamed it to reflect our broader focus on scientific integrity.