Mandatory publication in India: setting quotas for research output could encourage scientific fraud

It does nothing to incentivise high quality research and may weaken the evidence base A report this year that highlighted the poor research output from most medical institutions in India has sparked debate in the Indian and global media.1 2 3 It showed that about 60% of the country’s 579 medical institutions have not published any research in a decade.1 This led the Medical Council of India (MCI), which is presently under close parliamentary scrutiny, to update its guidelines to require at least four research publications to attain a post of associate professor and eight for the post of …