Plagiarism in the scholarly record, measured by rate.
Plagiarism retractions per 100,000 publications, by country, institution, and discipline — joined from the Retraction Watch database and OpenAlex, with confidence intervals and a stated source quality on every number. Free to browse, cite, and download.
Data updated 2026-10-03 · countries & institutions monthly · cases weekly · news daily
Plagiarism retractions per 100k publications, 2015–2024 — lower is better. For scale, the global high is Pakistan at 22.4.
By raw count, China leads with 580. By rate, it sits at 7.2 per 100k.
High-output research systems accumulate more retractions simply because they publish more. Ranking by absolute count produces a misleading “worst offender” frame; normalizing per 100,000 publications is a correctness requirement. This index never ranks by raw count.
Single years are too sparse to chart given retraction lag; the unit is a rolling window. Measures detected and reported plagiarism, not total plagiarism committed.
Plagiarism retractions per 100k publications, 2015–2024. Countries below the 100k reporting threshold or with no detected retractions show as insufficient data.
| # | Country | Per 100k |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | PKPakistan | 22.37 |
| 2 | PEPeru | 15.08 |
| 3 | RSSerbia | 15.02 |
| 4 | RORomania | 13.99 |
| 5 | TNTunisia | 13.78 |
| 6 | PHPhilippines | 13.66 |
| 7 | COColombia | 12.32 |
| 8 | INIndia | 12.17 |
| 9 | SASaudi Arabia | 12.02 |
| 10 | ETEthiopia | 11.26 |
| 11 | IRIran | 11.25 |
| 12 | GRGreece | 9.76 |
| 13 | IQIraq | 8.15 |
| 14 | BDBangladesh | 7.61 |
| 15 | MYMalaysia | 7.41 |
| 16 | CNChina | 7.19 |
| 17 | MAMorocco | 7.12 |
| 18 | DZAlgeria | 6.77 |
| 19 | EGEgypt | 6.53 |
| 20 | THThailand | 4.79 |
| 21 | AUAustralia | 4.50 |
| 22 | AEUnited Arab Emirates | 4.42 |
| 23 | PTPortugal | 4.21 |
| 24 | NGNigeria | 3.72 |
| 25 | ITItaly | 3.70 |
| 26 | KRSouth Korea | 3.52 |
| 27 | ZASouth Africa | 3.38 |
| 28 | RURussian Federation | 3.35 |
| 29 | SGSingapore | 3.17 |
| 30 | PLPoland | 2.49 |
| 31 | TWTaiwan | 2.30 |
| 32 | NLNetherlands | 2.27 |
| 33 | MXMexico | 1.95 |
| 34 | GBUnited Kingdom | 1.78 |
| 35 | ESSpain | 1.73 |
| 36 | CHSwitzerland | 1.73 |
| 37 | CACanada | 1.68 |
| 38 | CZCzechia | 1.64 |
| 39 | FRFrance | 1.60 |
| 40 | CLChile | 1.60 |
| 41 | ILIsrael | 1.60 |
| 42 | VNVietnam | 1.51 |
| 43 | ECEcuador | 1.49 |
| 44 | USUnited States | 1.44 |
| 45 | DEGermany | 1.23 |
| 46 | ARArgentina | 1.04 |
| 47 | KEKenya | 1.00 |
| 48 | NONorway | 0.86 |
| 49 | HRCroatia | 0.84 |
| 50 | JPJapan | 0.78 |
| 51 | DKDenmark | 0.75 |
| 52 | BEBelgium | 0.71 |
| 53 | SESweden | 0.67 |
| 54 | IDIndonesia | 0.61 |
| 55 | HUHungary | 0.50 |
| 56 | ATAustria | 0.48 |
| 57 | UAUkraine | 0.46 |
| 58 | NZNew Zealand | 0.45 |
| 59 | BRBrazil | 0.41 |
| 60 | IEIreland | 0.41 |
| 61 | FIFinland | 0.32 |
| 62 | HKHong Kong | 0.28 |
Direct measurement
Counted from primary records (Retraction Watch).
Curated aggregate
Compiled from multiple primary sources.
Modeled / inferred
Statistical extrapolation with stated confidence.
Survey-based
Self-reported, with sampling limitations.
Volume of plagiarism-related news coverage worldwide, by month — a current-events signal that spikes when scandals break. Source: GDELT, global online news.
管中閔聲援張淑娟 轟蘇巧慧不是第一次當幫兇 ： 為虎作倀當年迫害我
udn.com聲援張淑娟 管中閔轟 「 蘇巧慧不是第一次當幫兇 」： 我感同身受 - 政治
chinatimes.com管中閔聲援張淑娟 轟蘇巧慧不是第一次當幫兇 ： 為虎作倀當年迫害我 | 縣市長議員選戰 | 要聞
udn.comLa directora general de IA del Gobierno insta a los universitarios a no utilizarla constantemente: « Vuestro valor se reduce »
elnortedecastilla.es張淑娟控蘇巧慧幫兇 管中閔轟 ： 不是第一次 ！ 當年也曾迫害我 | ETtoday政治新聞
ettoday.netClearly, Pete Hegseth Just Wants To Be Parodied On SNL Again [ Op - Ed ]
92q.comWhy is China racing to build an AI film industry?
insideretail.asiaHow AI - assisted MBA projects of students can be evaluated
thehindu.comDartmouth launches review, faces student backlash following provost admitted AI use
wcax.comLa faida tra gli ex di Amici, AKA 7even rinviato a giudizio: Quella canzone è un plagio
lastampa.it張紫蘭散文集之六 「 文學談論 」 學理分析 / 陳清揚 - 張紫蘭
blog.udn.comPete Hegseth Just Wants To Be Parodied On SNL Again [ Op - Ed ]
newsone.comDocumented plagiarism incidents curated from Wikipedia, across academia, journalism, politics, and the arts. These are individual cases linked to their sources — not rates; journalism and politics have no publication denominator to normalize against.
National Museum of Taiwan Literature mascot plagiarism controversy
From 2023 to 2024, the National Museum of Taiwan Literature (NMTL) was involved in a plagiarism controversy involving its mascot.
WikipediaVoiceverse NFT plagiarism scandal
In January 2022, 15—the pseudonymous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) artificial intelligence researcher and creator of the non-commercial generative artificial intelligence voice synthesis
WikipediaConcerns and controversies at the 2020 Summer Olympics
A number of concerns and controversies arose leading up to the 2020 Summer Olympics, which took place in Tokyo, Japan.
WikipediaLi Mei-jhen thesis controversy
The Li Mei-jhen thesis controversy refers to an incident during the 2020 Kaohsiung mayoral by-election, in which Li Mei-jhen, the Kuomintang (KMT) candidate for the 2020 Kaohsiung mayoral by-election,
WikipediaStardock Systems, Inc. v. Reiche
Stardock Systems, Inc.
WikipediaHassan Rouhani plagiarism allegations
Allegations regarding Hassan Rouhani's plagiarism were first raised in 2013 when it was claimed that he had probably "lifted" sentences from a book by Afghan author, Mohammad Hashim Kamali.
WikipediaSpry Fox, LLC v. Lolapps, Inc.
Spry Fox, LLC v.
WikipediaTetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc.
Tetris Holding, LLC v.
WikipediaVroniPlag Wiki
VroniPlag Wiki is a wiki started 28 March 2011 at Wikia that examines and documents the extent of plagiarism in German doctoral theses.
WikipediaFree to reuse with attribution (CC-BY 4.0), including in commercial reporting. CSV per breakdown, or the full dataset as JSON.