Earlier this month, a national daily reported that at least 325 academic papers published by Bangladeshi researchers in international journals published between 2019 and 2026 had been retracted due to various irregularities, including plagiarism.

A recent Prothom Alo report on at least 325 retracted papers affiliated with researchers at Bangladeshi universities has attracted significant public attention, with indignation expressed at the state of Bangladesh’s scholarly enterprise.

Early in my research career, in a laboratory in Japan, I gave my supervisor a set of results I was proud of.