University of Southern Denmark

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND STRATEGIC VISION

The University of Southern Denmark presents a balanced and robust scientific integrity profile, with an overall risk score of -0.050 that indicates general alignment with expected international standards. The institution demonstrates significant strengths in its publication practices, showing very low risk in the use of discontinued or institutional journals, and a prudent, below-average rate of institutional self-citation. These results reflect a strong culture of due diligence and integration within the global scientific community. Areas requiring strategic attention include a high exposure to multiple affiliations and a notable gap between its overall research impact and the impact of work led by its own researchers. These factors, while not critical, suggest a need to reinforce policies around collaboration transparency and the development of internal scientific leadership. According to SCImago Institutions Rankings data, the university's academic excellence is particularly evident in its strong national standing (Top 3 in Denmark) in diverse fields such as Arts and Humanities, Business, Management and Accounting, Medicine, and Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics. The identified risks, particularly those related to impact dependency, could challenge the long-term sustainability of this excellence. To ensure its leadership is both impactful and structurally sound, the University of Southern Denmark is encouraged to leverage this analysis to fine-tune its governance, fostering an environment where internal capacity and transparent collaboration drive its continued success.

ANALYSIS BY INDICATOR

Rate of Multiple Affiliations

The institution presents a Z-score of 0.824, which is notably higher than the national average of 0.428. Although both scores fall within a medium-risk context, this comparison reveals that the university has a higher exposure to this risk factor than its national peers. This suggests a greater propensity for practices involving multiple institutional credits per publication. While multiple affiliations are often a legitimate result of researcher mobility or partnerships, this elevated rate warrants a review to ensure that these collaborations are structured transparently and are not primarily strategic attempts to inflate institutional credit through practices like “affiliation shopping”.

Rate of Retracted Output

With a Z-score of -0.024, the institution's rate of retractions is slightly higher than the national baseline of -0.199, though both remain in a low-risk category. This slight divergence points to an incipient vulnerability. Retractions can be complex events, sometimes signifying responsible supervision and the correction of honest errors. However, a rate that begins to edge above the national norm suggests that pre-publication quality control mechanisms may be facing localized challenges. This signal warrants a proactive review to reinforce methodological rigor and prevent any potential escalation.

Rate of Institutional Self-Citation

The institution demonstrates a prudent profile with a Z-score of -0.714, significantly lower than the national average of -0.197. This indicates that the university manages its citation practices with more rigor than the national standard. A certain level of self-citation is natural, but the institution's low rate effectively mitigates the risk of creating scientific 'echo chambers' or inflating its impact through endogamous dynamics. This result suggests a healthy integration into the global research community, where its work is validated by broad external scrutiny rather than internal reinforcement.

Rate of Output in Discontinued Journals

The institution's Z-score of -0.463 is nearly identical to the national average of -0.476, with both at a very low-risk level. This reflects a state of integrity synchrony, demonstrating total alignment with a national environment of maximum scientific security. This confirms that the university exercises excellent due diligence in selecting dissemination channels. Such a low rate indicates that its researchers are effectively avoiding predatory or low-quality publications, thereby protecting the institution from severe reputational risks and ensuring resources are invested in credible scientific communication.

Rate of Hyper-Authored Output

While both the institution (Z-score: 0.057) and the country (Z-score: 0.325) exhibit medium-risk levels for hyper-authorship, the university's score is considerably lower. This points to a differentiated management approach, where the institution successfully moderates a risk that is more common at the national level. This suggests more rigorous internal policies or a culture that better distinguishes between necessary massive collaboration and practices like 'honorary' authorship. By maintaining a lower rate, the institution better preserves individual accountability and transparency in its collaborative research.

Gap between Impact of total output and the impact of output with leadership

The institution's Z-score of 1.021 is substantially higher than the national average of 0.241, placing it in a position of high exposure to this particular risk. This wide positive gap signals a potential sustainability risk, suggesting that the institution's overall scientific prestige may be significantly dependent on collaborations where it does not exercise intellectual leadership. While partnering is essential, this high value invites strategic reflection on whether its excellence metrics result from genuine internal capacity or from a positioning in external projects that may not be building long-term, structural research strength.

Rate of Hyperprolific Authors

The University of Southern Denmark displays notable institutional resilience, with a low-risk Z-score of -0.104 in contrast to the country's medium-risk score of 0.213. This demonstrates that the institution's internal control mechanisms are effectively mitigating a systemic risk present in the national environment. By maintaining a low rate of hyperprolific authors, the university discourages potential imbalances between quantity and quality, such as coercive authorship or assigning credit without real participation, thereby upholding the integrity of its scientific record over the simple inflation of metrics.

Rate of Output in Institutional Journals

With a Z-score of -0.268, which is even lower than the minimal national average of -0.178, the institution demonstrates total operational silence on this indicator. This complete absence of risk signals confirms that the university does not rely on its own journals for publishing its research. This practice is a hallmark of integrity, as it avoids the inherent conflicts of interest where an institution acts as both judge and party. By ensuring its scientific production undergoes independent external peer review, the university maximizes its global visibility and competitive validation.

Rate of Redundant Output

The institution's Z-score of -0.277 is very close to the national average of -0.244, placing it in a state of statistical normality within a low-risk context. This alignment indicates that the level of bibliographic overlap between publications is as expected for its environment and does not represent a significant deviation. While no system is entirely free of it, this score suggests that the practice of 'salami slicing'—artificially inflating productivity by fragmenting a single study into multiple minimal publications—is not a systemic issue at the institution.