ANDINA/Editora Perú
In an ongoing effort to combat scientific misconduct, Peru has passed new rules that bar research faculty at public universities there from receiving special bonuses if they’ve had one or more retractions in the last three years.
The conditions, published March 2, apply to faculty members at public universities who are eligible for special bonuses funded by the Ministry of Education. Peruvian researchers who participate in one or more research projects qualify for the monthly bonuses, which range from 2,616.50 to 4,434.91 Peruvian soles, or US$699.60 to $1,185.80, according to a summary in the new rules.
The restrictions come after a 2024 investigative commission in Peru identified significant scientific fraud by criminal networks involved in buying and selling academic research. Transactions by three presumed criminal networks amounted to 11.42 million soles, or roughly $3 million, between 2019 and 2023, according to the commission’s report.
The government launched that investigation after an exposé by Peruvian news program Punto Final revealed how researchers were paying for coauthorships to secure the state-funded bonuses.
In recent years, legislators have proposed bills that would classify fraudulent research practices as serious offenses and include stiff penalties, such as suspension and potential expulsion from Peru’s national system of science, technology and technological innovation, for offenders.
In March 2024, the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Tecnológica (CONCYTEC), which governs science, technology and innovation in Peru, approved a new National Code of Scientific Integrity that defines buying and selling authorships as scientific fraud.
The new restrictions are long overdue, said Joel Alhuay-Quispe, a bibliometrician and independent researcher in Peru. But Alhuay-Quispe, who coauthored a 2025 opinion article in Learned Publishing about the black market of paper mills in the country, said the conditions are not extensive enough.
“Honestly, I don’t believe this addition will solve the black market issue because the problem is more complicated than only adding a few lines or words in [ an executive order], updated yearly,” Alhuay-Quispe told Retraction Watch. “But I hope that it could be the start line for other changes” to policies governing science, technology and innovation in Peru.
Alhuay-Quispe noted the conditions do not specify what types of retractions justify the bonus penalty, which could be problematic because not all retractions indicate research misconduct.
The Ministry of Education and SUNEDU, the government agency responsible for regulation of higher education in Peru, did not return messages seeking comment.
Unethical publishing practices became more common after Peru’s 2014 University Law, which encouraged more scientific publishing and defined a university model for the country directed toward scientific output and research, according to Alhuay-Quispe and other analyses of the issue. The push has contributed to a “publish or perish” culture and led more researchers to align with paper mills and publish in predatory journals, Alhuay-Quispe wrote in the Learned Publishing article. In addition to financial incentives for publication, institutions with high scientific production are also generally better positioned in university rankings.
Alhuay-Quispe’s paper also describes the practice of “thesis mills” in Peru and an increasing practice of purchasing research.
He told us he hopes further changes are on the horizon. For instance, the special bonus restrictions should go further to include additional misconduct such as publication in questionable or “fraudulent journals,” he said.
“Also, I believe the partial solution is transitioning toward a ‘whitelist’ of reputable journals,” he told us. “By establishing a clear list of trusted channels to share the research, we can effectively differentiate legitimate from questionable or fraudulent sources.”
According to our database, researchers from Peru are authors on 54 retracted papers, more than half of which occurred in the last five years. About a quarter of the retractions were likely associated with paper mills, by our count.
Virgilio E Failoc-Rojas, a researcher with the Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola in Lima has three retractions, including a 2022 paper in Expert Review of Medical Devices linked to an authorship ad posted on social media eight months before the paper was published. Failoc-Rojas shares all three of his retractions with coauthor Yasser Fakri Mustafa of the University of Mosul in Iraq, who holds an extensive retraction record tied to paper mills.
Failoc-Rojas did not return a message seeking comment.
Another researcher, Rosario Mireya Romero Parra, of Continental University, also shares a 2025 retraction with Mustafa, as well as three 2024 retractions and one in 2023 in a Hindawi journal, Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society. Romero was one of the researchers named in the Punto Final investigation, and the university dismissed her, according to the news report.
After the report, CONCYTEC excluded Romero from the Registro Nacional Científico, Tecnológico y de Innovación Tecnológica, the official process of classifying and certifying researchers in Peru, according to the commission’s report.
José Luis Arias-Gonzáles of the Pontifical University of Peru also has five retractions, including one in a Hindawi journal. Arias-Gonzáles is a key figure named in the investigative commission’s report for running a WhatsApp group called “Artículos en Scopus,” which offered to sell authorships for research articles.
During testimony, Arias-Gonzáles admitted to selling co-authorships to researchers and provided the commission with a list of 24 alleged clients who made purchases, according to the investigative report. The commission recommended referring his case to the Office of the National Prosecutor for further criminal investigation.
Romero and Arias-Gonzáles did not return messages seeking comment.
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