Krirk University

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND STRATEGIC VISION

Krirk University presents a complex profile of scientific integrity, with an overall risk score of 1.640 reflecting a combination of exceptional strengths and critical vulnerabilities. The institution demonstrates exemplary governance in several key areas, maintaining very low-risk levels in institutional self-citation, hyper-authorship, hyperprolific authors, and redundant output, often outperforming national trends. These strengths provide a solid foundation for its academic activity, which is particularly notable in thematic areas such as Psychology, Arts and Humanities, and Economics, Econometrics and Finance, where it holds strong national rankings according to SCImago Institutions Rankings data. However, this positive performance is severely undermined by a critical-level risk in the rate of publication in discontinued journals, alongside medium-level risks in multiple affiliations, retractions, and impact dependency. These vulnerabilities directly challenge any institutional mission centered on academic excellence and social responsibility, as they suggest systemic issues in quality control and strategic partner selection. To fully leverage its strengths and align its practices with its academic ambitions, it is imperative that the university implements a rigorous strategy to improve due diligence in publication channel selection and enhance its internal quality assurance mechanisms.

ANALYSIS BY INDICATOR

Rate of Multiple Affiliations

The institution presents a Z-score of 0.960, a value that moderately deviates from the national average of -0.549. This suggests the university is more sensitive to this particular risk factor than its national peers. While multiple affiliations are often a legitimate result of researcher mobility or partnerships, a disproportionately high rate can signal strategic attempts to inflate institutional credit. This moderate alert level indicates a need to review affiliation patterns to ensure they reflect genuine collaboration rather than "affiliation shopping" aimed at maximizing institutional metrics.

Rate of Retracted Output

With a Z-score of 0.295 compared to the country's -0.060, the university shows a moderate deviation from the national standard, indicating a greater sensitivity to this risk. Retractions are complex events, but a rate significantly higher than the norm suggests that quality control mechanisms prior to publication may be facing systemic challenges. This value serves as an alert to a potential vulnerability in the institution's integrity culture, pointing to possible recurring malpractice or a lack of methodological rigor that requires immediate qualitative verification by management.

Rate of Institutional Self-Citation

The institution demonstrates an exceptionally strong performance with a Z-score of -1.125, in stark contrast to the national average of 0.615, which indicates a medium-risk environment. This result shows a form of preventive isolation, where the university does not replicate the risk dynamics observed across the country. A certain level of self-citation is natural, but the institution's very low rate signals robust external validation of its research, effectively avoiding the "echo chambers" and endogamous impact inflation that can arise from excessive self-reference. This is a clear indicator of healthy integration within the global scientific community.

Rate of Output in Discontinued Journals

The institution's Z-score of 8.680 is a critical alert, drastically amplifying a vulnerability that is already present in the national system (Z-score of 0.511). This extreme value indicates that a significant portion of the university's scientific production is being channeled through media that do not meet international ethical or quality standards. Such a practice exposes the institution to severe reputational risks and strongly suggests an urgent and systemic need for improved information literacy and due diligence to prevent the waste of resources on "predatory" or low-quality publishing practices.

Rate of Hyper-Authored Output

With a Z-score of -1.256, the institution shows an absence of risk signals that is consistent with, and even stronger than, the low-risk national standard (Z-score of -0.625). This low-profile consistency indicates that authorship practices are well-governed. The data suggests the university effectively avoids the risk of author list inflation, thereby ensuring that individual accountability and transparency are maintained and distinguishing its collaborative work from practices involving "honorary" or political authorships.

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

The institution's Z-score of 0.094 marks a moderate deviation from the national average of -0.335, indicating a greater sensitivity to this risk than its peers. This positive gap suggests that the institution's overall scientific prestige may be dependent on external partners rather than being structurally generated from within. This signals a potential sustainability risk, inviting reflection on whether the university's high-impact metrics result from its own internal capacity and intellectual leadership or from strategic positioning in collaborations where it plays a secondary role.

Rate of Hyperprolific Authors

The institution's Z-score of -1.049 is firmly in the very low-risk category, aligning with the low-risk national context (Z-score of -0.266). This low-profile consistency demonstrates a healthy balance between research quantity and quality. The absence of hyperprolific authors suggests that the university is not exposed to risks such as coercive authorship or the assignment of authorship without real participation, reinforcing a culture that prioritizes the integrity of the scientific record over the inflation of metrics.

Rate of Output in Institutional Journals

The university exhibits a Z-score of -0.268, a very low-risk value that contrasts sharply with the medium-risk national average of 0.595. This indicates a successful preventive isolation from a common risk in its environment. By avoiding dependence on its own journals, the institution effectively sidesteps potential conflicts of interest and academic endogamy. This practice ensures its scientific production undergoes independent external peer review, which is crucial for limiting the use of internal channels as "fast tracks" and for building genuine global visibility and validation.

Rate of Redundant Output

With a Z-score of -0.692, the institution demonstrates a very low-risk profile, consistent with the national standard (Z-score of -0.027). This absence of risk signals indicates that the university's research culture prioritizes substance over volume. The low rate of bibliographic overlap suggests that researchers are not engaging in "salami slicing"—the practice of dividing a coherent study into minimal publishable units to artificially inflate productivity—but are instead focused on producing work that represents a significant contribution to knowledge.