Understanding Scholarship on the Uniform Civil Code in India: Research Trends, Themes, and Impact
Keywords:
Retractions, Nanotechnology research, Misconduct, Ethical Standards, Retraction watch databaseAbstract
The present study aimed to assess the research landscape on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in India. The purpose of the study was to evaluate UCC-related research using various scientometric and altmetric indicators. Moreover, latent research topics were identified using topic modelling techniques. The study collected the bibliographic data from the Scopus database and the altmetric data from the altmetric.com database. Topic modelling was performed using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) techniques. The study's findings revealed that the quantity of UCC-related articles is limited, finding only 89 Scopus-indexed papers. However, there is considerable scope for studying UCC in various aspects. The growth pattern of publications and citations was also fluctuating. The social media visibility and influence were also limited. 71 articles did not have any indexed altmetric data. Furthermore, there was no diversity in the explored topics. Researchers focused on only two research topics, i.e., Gender-Religion Debate and Legal Influence Factors. The study emphasized the need for further research on UCC and encouraged future researchers to make efforts to strengthen the knowledge structure of UCC.
Downloads
References
Bar-Ilan, J., & Halevi, G. (2017). Post retraction citations in context: A case study. Scientometrics, 113(1), 547–565. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2242-0
Basumatary, B., Sinha, M., Kumar, V., & Verma, M. (2025). Retractions in Indian business research: A closer look at trends, reasons, and impacts of retracted articles. DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, 45(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.14429/djlit.20357
Bhushan, B. (2017). Introduction to nanotechnology. In B. Bhushan (Ed.), Springer Handbook of Nanotechnology (pp. 1–19). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49347-3_1
Beauchemin, É., Côté, L. P., Drolet, M.-J., & Williams-Jones, B. (2022). Conceptualising ethical issues in the conduct of research: Results from a critical and systematic literature review. Journal of Academic Ethics, 20(3), 335–358. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-021-09411-7
Bik, E. M., Casadevall, A., & Fang, F. C. (2016). The prevalence of inappropriate image duplication in biomedical research publications. mBio, 7(3), e00809-16. https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00809-16
Bornemann-Cimenti, H., Szilagyi, I. S., & Sandner-Kiesling, A. (2016). Perpetuation of retracted publications using the example of the Wakefield et al. 1998 Lancet paper. Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift, 128(3-4), 126–131. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00508-015-0873-5
Bornmann, L., & Mutz, R. (2015). Growth rates of modern science: A bibliometric analysis based on the number of publications and cited references. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 66(11), 2215–2222. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23329
Candal-Pedreira, C., Ghaddar, A., Pérez-Ríos, M., Varela-Lema, L., Álvarez-Dardet, C., & Ruano-Ravina, A. (2023). Scientific misconduct: Cross-sectional study of the perceptions, attitudes, and experiences of Spanish researchers. Accountability in Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2023.2284965
Christopher, M. M. (2022). Comprehensive analysis of retracted journal articles in the field of veterinary medicine and animal health. BMC Veterinary Research, 18, Article 73. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-022-03167-x
Decullier, E., Huot, L., Samson, G., & Maisonneuve, H. (2013). Visibility of retractions: A cross-sectional one-year study. BMC Research Notes, 6, 238. https://doi.org/10.1186/1756-0500-6-238
Decullier, E., & Maisonneuve, H. (2021). Retraction of articles in the engineering field: A bibliometric analysis. Science and Engineering Ethics, 27(3), 24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-021-00302-2
Drolet, M., Goulet, L., Monaghan, C., Larivière, V., & Drapeau, M. (2023). Ethical issues in research: Perceptions of researchers, research ethics board members, and research ethics experts. Journal of Academic Ethics, 21(2), 265–284. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-022-09455-3
Elango, B., Kozak, M., & Rajendran, P. (2019). Analysis of retractions in Indian science. Scientometrics, 119(2), 1081–1094. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03079-y
Elango, B. (2021). Retracted articles in the biomedical literature from Indian authors. Scientometrics, 126(5), 3965–3981. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03895-1
Eldakar, M. A. M., & Shehata, A. M. K. (2023). A bibliometric study of article retractions in technology fields in developing economies. Scientometrics, 128(11), 6047–6083. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04823-1
Elsevier. (2024). Retraction trends in nanotechnology research: A bibliometric analysis. Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements, 29(4), 112–130. Retrieved from Elsevier
Fanelli, D. (2013). Why growing retractions are (mostly) a good sign. PLOS Medicine, 10(12), e1001563. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001563
Fang, F. C., Steen, R. G., & Casadevall, A. (2012). Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(42), 17028–17033. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1212247109
Freijedo-Farinas, F., Ruano-Ravina, A., Pérez-Ríos, M., Ross, J., & Candal-Pedreira, C. (2024). Biomedical retractions due to misconduct in Europe: Characterization and trends in the last 20 years. Scientometrics, 129(5), 2867–2882. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-04992-7
Ghazinoory, S., Ghazinoori, S., & Azadegan-Mehr, M. (2011). SWOT methodology: A state-of-the-art review for the past, a framework for the future. Journal of Business Economics and Management, 12(1), 24–48. https://doi.org/10.3846/16111699.2011.555358
Grieneisen, M. L., & Zhang, M. (2012). A comprehensive survey of retracted articles from the scholarly literature. PLoS ONE, 7(10), e44118. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0044118
Hindawi. (2023). Annual report on global research integrity and retractions. Retrieved from Hindawi
Herrera-Añazco, P., Fernandez-Guzman, D., Barriga-Chambi, F., Benites-Meza, J. K., Caira-Chuquineyra, B., & Benites-Zapata, V. A. (2024). Retraction of health science articles by researchers in Latin America and the Caribbean: A scoping review. Developing World Bioethics. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12439
Hwang, S. Y., Yon, D. K., Lee, S. W., Kim, M. S., Kim, J. Y., Smith, L., Koyanagi, A., Solmi, M., Carvalho, A. F., Kim, E., Shin, J. I., & Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2023). Causes for retraction in the biomedical literature: A systematic review of studies of retraction notices. Journal of Korean Medical Science, 38(41), e333. https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2023.38.e333
Khademizadeh, S., Danesh, F., Esmaeili, S., Lund, B., & Santos-d’Amorim, K. (2023). Evolution of retracted publications in the medical sciences: Citations analysis, bibliometrics, and altmetrics trends. Accountability in Research, 30(8), 1182–1197. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2023.2223996
Liu, W., & Lei, L. (2021). Retractions in the Middle East from 1999 to 2018: A bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics, 126(6), 4687–4700. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03919-w
Marcus, A., & Oransky, I. (2014). What studies of retractions tell us. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 15(2), 151–154. https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v15i2.872
Martínez-Rojas, E., Zahn-Muñoz, C., & Espinaza-Solar, R. (2025). Retraction of scientific literature: Analyzing the reasons for retractions across different areas of knowledge in Latin America. Data and Metadata, 4, Article 638. https://doi.org/10.56294/dm2025638
Martínez-Rojas, E., & Zahn-Muñoz, C. (2025). New forms of fraud in science: Deceptive practices such as article mills, fraudulent peer review, and automatic content generation. Data and Metadata, 4, Article 655. https://doi.org/10.56294/dm2025655
Moed, H. F. (2005). Citation analysis in research evaluation. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3714-7
Nair, R. (2024). Retraction trends in nanotechnology: A bibliometric analysis. Journal of Research Integrity, 12(3), 145–162.
Nature Editorial. (2025). The rise of retractions in high-impact research: Causes and consequences. Nature, 600(7890), 34–37. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00257-2
Patwardhan, B. (2019). Why India’s research quality must improve. Nature, 575(7784), 589. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03548-2
Pranckutė, R. (2021). Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The titans of bibliographic information in today's academic world. Publications, 9(1), 12. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications9010012
Posada, A., & Chen, G. (2023). Inequality in knowledge production: The integration of academic infrastructure by big publishers. Learned Publishing, 36(4), 476–486. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1572
Retraction Watch. (2023). Hindawi reveals process for retracting more than 8,000 papers and articles. Retrieved from Retraction Watch
Retraction Watch. (2023). Retraction Watch Database. Center for Scientific Integrity. https://retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database-user-guide/
Retraction Watch. (2025). Annual report on global research integrity and retractions. Retrieved from Retraction Watch.
Ribeiro, M. D., & Vasconcelos, S. M. R. (2018). Retractions covered by Retraction Watch in the 2013–2015 period: prevalence for biomedical and clinical research. Accountability in Research, 25(2), 99–121. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2017.1406073
Roje, R., Reyes Elizondo, A., Kaltenbrunner, W., Buljan, I., & Marušić, A. (2023). Factors influencing the promotion and implementation of research integrity in research-performing and research-funding organizations: A scoping review. Accountability in Research, 30(8), 633–671. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2022.2080549
Salata, O. V. (2004). Applications of nanoparticles in biology and medicine. Journal of Nanobiotechnology, 2(1), 3. https://doi.org/10.1186/1477-3155-2-3
Schmidt, M. (2018). An analysis of the validity of retraction annotation in PubMed and the Web of Science. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 69(2), 318–328. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23913
Sharma, P. (2024). Ethical challenges in nanotechnology publishing: A global perspective. International Journal of Scientific Ethics, 18(2), 78–95.
Siva, N., & Rajendran, P. (2023). Retracted publications in BRICS countries: An analytical study. Scientometrics, 128(11), 6313–6333. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04856-6
Springer. (2024). Over two decades of scientific misconduct in India: Retraction reasons and journal quality among inter-country and intra-country institutional collaboration. Scientometrics, 129(7735–7757). Retrieved from Springer
Steen, R. G. (2011). Retractions in the scientific literature: Is the incidence of research fraud increasing? Journal of Medical Ethics, 37(4), 249–253. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.2010.040923
Stretton, S., Bramich, N. J., Keys, J. R., Monk, J. A., Ely, J. A., Haley, C., & Woolley, M. J. (2012). Publication misconduct and plagiarism retractions: A systematic, retrospective study. Current Medical Research and Opinion, 28(10), 1575–1583. https://doi.org/10.1185/03007995.2012.728131
Sugimoto, C. R., & Larivière, V. (2018). Measuring research: What everyone needs to know. Oxford University Press.
Taylor & Francis. (2024). Ethical frameworks and research integrity in academic publishing. Journal of Research Ethics, 12(2), 89–105. Retrieved from Taylor & Francis
Van Eck, N. J., & Waltman, L. (2010). Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics, 84(2), 523–538. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3
Van Noorden, R. (2023). More than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023 — a new record. Nature, 624(7992), 479–481. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03974-8
Vuong, Q. H. (2020). The rise of scientific fraud: Preventing misconduct and protecting the integrity of science. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(5), 438. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0875-9
Waltman, L., & van Eck, N. J. (2013). A smart local moving algorithm for large-scale modularity-based community detection. The European Physical Journal B, 86(11), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2013-40829-0
Williams-Jones, B., Potvin, M. J., Mathieu, G., & Smith, E. (2013). Barriers to research on research ethics review and conflicts of interest. IRB: Ethics & Human Research, 35(5), 14–19.
Xiao, Y., Chen, J., Wu, X., & Qiu, Q. (2022). High retraction rate of Chinese articles: It is time to address academic misconduct. Postgraduate Medical Journal, 98(1163), 653–654. https://doi.org/10.1136/postgradmedj-2021-140853
Zhang, L., Jiang, S., & Li, Q. (2022). Research integrity in the age of publish or perish: A bibliometric analysis of retracted articles. Accountability in Research, 29(4), 231–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2021.1915704
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Journal of Indian Library Association
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
