Research Integrity Risk Index (RI²) is a diagnostic, bibliometric framework designed to assess institutional exposure to selected research-integrity-related risks.^[1][2] Developed in 2025 byLokman Meho (لقمان محّو), a professor and University Librarian at theAmerican University of Beirut, RI² is presented as complementary to conventional global university rankings, which primarily emphasize publication volume and citation counts.^[3][4][5]RI² evaluates universities using three institution-level bibliometric indicators associated with integrity risk signals in scholarly publishing:retracted journal articles, publications in journals that were subsequently delisted from majorbibliographic databases, and institutionalself-citation patterns.^[6][7] The framework emerged amid broader debates over the limitations of citation- and volume-based ranking methodologies in capturing research integrity-related risks.^{[8][9][10][11]}

RI² assesses academic institutions using three bibliometric indicators derived from verifiable publications and citation data.

Delisted Journal Risk (D Rate) measures the percentage of an institution's research output published in journals that were later delisted fromScopus orWeb of Science following those databeses' re-evaluation processes for editorial or publishing standards.^[12][13][14]

Retraction Risk (R-Rate) measures the number of retracted journal articles per 1,000 published articles over a defined publication window. Retraction data are compiled and cross-validated using multiple independent sources, including theRetraction Watch Database,MEDLINE,Scopus, andWeb of Science, with filtering procedures applied to exclude duplicate records and retractions unrelated to authorship issues.^[15][16]

Self citation Rate (S-Rate) measures the proportion of citations to an institution's publications that originate from the same institution. Citation data are sourced from InCites, and the indicator is reported descriptively and interpreted in relation to peer institutions within the same field classifications.^[1][17][18]

All three indicators are field normalized and benchmarked against a fixed global reference group comprising the 1,000 publishing universities worldwide. Each indicator is scaled to a 0–1 range using Min-Max normalization with caps applied to extreme values, and the normalized indicators are combined using equal weighting to generate the composite RI2 score.^[1]

Based on their composite scores, institutions are assigned to one of five percentile-based risk tiers: Low Risk, Normal Variation, Watch List, High Risk, and Red Flag. Tier placement reflects relative exposure to integrity-related publishing risks and is not intended as an assessment of research quality, misconduct, or institutional performance.

Detailed methodology is available online on the officialRI² website.

RI² website provides tabular results for the world's most publishing universities along withworld maps that illustrate country-level D-Rate and R-rate, allowing examination of geographic variations in risk profiles.

This table lists the universities flagged as highest-risk (Red Tier) in the Research Integrity Risk Index (RI²).^[18]

RI² has received coverage in international scientific and higher-education media. A 2025 article inNature discussed institutional retraction patterns and cited RI² data in its analysis of universities with high numbers of retracted publications.^[2]University World News reported on the development of RI² as a response to concerns about metric-driven distortions in global university rankings, describing the index as a diagnostic tool rather than a punitive ranking.^[5]

Regional and national media outlets have also reported on RI² findings in country-specific contexts. In India, Science Chronicle discussed universities classified in the highest RI² risk tiers in the context of debates on research assessment and retractions.^[19] Coverage inAl-Ghad (Jordan) similarly reported on RI² results in relation to national higher-education institutions.^[20]

Beyond media reporting, RI² has been referenced in scholarly and policy-oriented discussions on integrity-aware approaches to research assessment. A commentary published by the Indian Society of Artificial Intelligence and Law (ISAIL) cited RI² in discussions on incorporating research-integrity considerations into institutional evaluation frameworks.^[4]

In 2026, Egypt's Supreme Council of Universities of theMinistry of Higher Education and Scientific Research issued a governmentreport titled Research Integrity Risk Index (RI²), presenting RI² as an early-warning, data-driven framework for assessing institution-level integrity-related publishing risks and offering recommendations for Egyptian universities and research-governance bodies.^[21]

Following the introduction of RI², subsequent work in the research-assessment literature has employed institution-level indicators similar to those proposed in the framework. In particular, retractions, publications in delisted journals, and self-citation were recently used byJohn P. A. Ioannidis and collaborators as adjustment factors in an institution-level percentile ranking framework.^[22]

• Retraction Watch
• Scientific misconduct
• Citation Impact
• Predatory publishing
• Retraction in academic publishing
• Publish or perish
• Citation

• Official RI² Dashboard
• Lokman I. Meho, MLS, PhD

• Academic publishing
• Scientific misconduct
• Research-related lists
• University and college rankings
• Research ethics

• CS1 Spanish-language sources (es)
• CS1 Arabic-language sources (ar)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata