A Letter to the Saudi Royal Family - Asking for Reactions against Academic Misconducts at Saudi Universities
Dear Sir,
This letter is from the 5GH Foundation, an independent research agency in Hong Kong. We are writing this letter in the hope of expressing our concerns on the misconducts in Saudi universities and asking for reactions to fight against them.
We noticed an upward trend for the academic misconducts in Saudi universities. 94 academic papers with author(s) from King Saud University (KSU) and published in 2022 were retracted due to academic misconducts. This number was twice as that (54) for the papers published in 2021. Totally, 257 papers from KSU and published before August 10th, 2024, were published.
Similar issues were found in other Saudi universities. 167 papers from King Abdulaziz University, and 106 papers from King Khalid University were retracted, mostly due to academic misconducts.
The increasing misconduct cases in Saudi universities compromise not only the reputation of the Saudi universities and researches, but also the reputation of the Saudi Royal Family, since most of these universities are named after the kings.
Therefore, we are asking for the Royal Family to react, including but limited to open a national community to investigate these misconduct cases, and establish a channel to receive reports from the global scientific community.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, we are looking forward to hear from you.
Sincerely
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