In its written reply to a story, ‘Fraudulent research thriving in Pakistan due to HEC’s apathy’, published in The News on October 25, the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) has denied that it has been apathetic towards fraudulent research practices in the country.

The commission, however, acknowledged some of the points raised in the story and said that it had been working to improve its monitoring of unfair means being employed by academic researchers in the country and further strengthen the HEC Journal Recognition System (HJRS) which was developed for the recognition of international and local journals.

The News story had stated that various researchers in the country had had their papers published in clone and predatory journals and no proper mechanism seemed to be in place to keep a check on such academic frauds and deceptions.