{"id":155855,"date":"2023-06-07T10:04:06","date_gmt":"2023-06-07T08:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=155855"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:49","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:49","slug":"prestige-for-sale-by-academics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2023\/06\/07\/prestige-for-sale-by-academics\/","title":{"rendered":"Prestige for sale by academics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere are far worse things happening in academia\u201d, Wageningen University professor Vincenzo Fogliano commented in de Volkskrant<\/em><\/a>, in response to revelations that he had sold his name to King Saud University in Riyadh. The newspaper exposed a shocking scandal: the Saudi Arabian university in question is buying the prestige of researchers who are among the world\u2019s top-cited academics from other countries.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLevien Willemse<\/a>, \t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPauline Wiersema<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

In exchange for huge amounts of money, researchers are altering the citation index to show the name of King Saud University instead of their own universities. This improves this Saudi university\u2019s position on the prestigious Shanghai Ranking, a list of the world\u2019s best universities.<\/p>\n

It transpires that Saudi Arabia has been buying prestige from academics for many years now. As a country, it is not known for the freedoms it grants to citizens, let alone academic freedom. Dutch universities are high up in the ranking, and Wageningen is no exception (although it is considerably lower in the rankings than Erasmus University, which is among the top 100 alongside other Dutch universities like Utrecht University and the University of Groningen). This makes our country an attractive place for rich but poorly performing universities like King Saud University to \u2018buy\u2019 researchers. The Saudis approached six professors from Wageningen, but Vincenzo Fogliano was the only one to give in. The university benefited from the transaction too, because of the extra research funding it received.<\/p>\n\n\t

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