At the India AI Impact Summit, Galgotias University triggered national embarrassment at an international stage, as it attempted to label a Chinese robot dog as its own. However, the faux pas revealed something deeper and more troubling: Indian universities’ plagiarism problem.
According to the latest updates from the SCImago’s IRIS, which ranks universities on the basis of research integrity, Indian universities aren’t faring well at all when it comes to aggregated research integrity risk indicators. Out of 350 Indian universities ranked, 238 institutions, including Galgotias University, post “medium” or “significant” credibility risk because of the high number of retracted and discontinued journal output.
The highest ranking for an Indian university across the globe is 843. This is extremely worrisome.
Low rankings on the index signify that Indian universities are actively encouraging research practices that deviate from international standards. Universities often artificially inflate their research influence through internal citations rather than peer review. And a high rate of retracted output hints at blatant plagiarism.
So, how did Indian higher education end up here?
A Dire Situation
Plagiarism is among the gravest offences in academia. Since 2020, according to the research integrity index, India recorded 303 retractions due to plagiarism—nearly 11% of the global cases. That number only reflects cases that were caught. The real figure is likely far higher.
The penalties do little to deter. Under existing UGC guidelines, even in cases of more than 60% plagiarism, a faculty member loses two increments and cannot supervise students for three years. Dismissal is rare. In the US and Europe, careers end for far less.
However, the cost of misconduct is low, and the probability of being caught is even lower.
For three years, India Research Watch has been publishing data pointing to what it calls a misconduct crisis. Achal Agrawal, Founder of India Research Watch, traces the problem to the top.
“I think this comes from the top. It is the rankings and the incentives designed for the universities,” he tells AIM.
Universities respond to what is measured. “The universities are not doing it because they're filing patents. It is because they’re being incentivised by the rankings and the ratings to do so. That has to be fixed.”
The government has acknowledged parts of this reality. Negative marks for misconduct have been introduced in the National Institute of Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings, which ranks higher education institutions based on parameters like teaching, research and graduation outcomes.
Yet the deeper architecture remains intact. Global and domestic rankings reward output volume. More papers. More patents. More numbers.
Agrawal calls it a policy distortion. “I think it’s more of a policy measure, which has given rise to this.”
The Deeper Problem
The Galgotias University incident hints at a deeper rot.
V Ramgopal Rao, Group Vice-Chancellor for BITS Pilani Campuses, frames it as a cultural drift. The core issue, he says, is not a single failed demo but a larger problem where “optics begin to dominate substance.” When presentation outruns depth, exposure is only a matter of time.
He is blunt about responsibility. “A serious academic institution does not send a marketing executive to explain a technical prototype,” he says. Technical claims must be defended by those who built, coded, or validated them. Once scripted marketing replaces expertise, credibility collapses, especially in an era of real-time fact-checking.
When mistakes surface, the response matters. Institutions should “own up to the mistake” and issue clear clarifications. “Long-term respect comes from accountability, not clever explanations,” he proclaims.
There is also the matter of scale. Extraordinary patent and publication numbers require extraordinary investment. Filing and maintaining patents, funding laboratories, supporting PhDs, and producing durable research demand capital. If financial inputs do not match public claims, the mismatch eventually surfaces and distorts incentives further.
Indian universities operate inside a layered incentive structure that rewards volume as much as quality. Students receive government scholarships ranging from ₹12,000 to ₹20,000 a year. Faculty and researchers are nudged through financial triggers: a share of research grants that can go up to 5%, patent filing rewards of around ₹10,000, and publication incentives that can touch ₹9,000 per paper.
Institutions have their own carrots. Top ranked campuses can access capital subsidies of 20%, while tax concessions are designed to push research spending and campus expansion. Moreover, initiatives like the KAPILA scheme offer patent cost reimbursements—up to ₹2 lakh for Indian patents and ₹10 lakh for international patents.
Meanwhile, India’s total expenditure on R&D remains at approximately 0.64% of GDP, according to the Economic Survey 2025-26. This is significantly lower than the 2.5–5% range of innovation-led economies like the US, China, and Israel.
“Reputation is fragile in this age of viral videos,” Rao says. Reform must precede embarrassment.
The Patent Push
India’s patent push offers a case study. Agrawal draws a contrast with the West. “What we see in the difference between India’s research ecosystem and the international one is the closeness between the industry and academia,” he says.
In the US, a professor with a patent can aggressively commercialise it, seek licensing deals, and earn royalties. Industry funds nearly two-thirds of academic research. In India, nearly two-thirds of funding comes from the public exchequer.
The result is fragmentation. “We see some isolated patents in various random topics and that doesn't help anyone,” Agrawal says. One patent in 10 unrelated areas will not build a product. A cluster and an ecosystem might.
Without strong industry linkages, patents remain academic artifacts. Filing more of them to climb rankings does not change that.
Rao puts it simply. Not every university needs to project itself as a top research powerhouse. If the strength lies in undergraduate teaching, embrace it.
This is something that Dr Amit Sheth, who is leading the Indian AI Research Organisation, also speaks about. The need for public-private partnerships for research in the AI space has to increase. This would push papers out and actual research takes place in the country.
Agrawal says that India has seen hype before. In his LinkedIn post, he gave the example that in the 90s, a claim of converting water into petrol captured headlines. Investigations later revealed petrol was being pre-mixed. Institutions such as IIT Madras and the Indian Institute of Petroleum could not replicate the results. The spectacle faded. The lesson should not have.
This moment feels similar, yet something shifted. Academic integrity, plagiarism, and ranking conversations have now entered the mainstream.
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