Ethical Issues in Higher Education and Scientific Research: Erosion of Academic Integrity

Ethics is the cornerstone of dental research or for that matter any research. Authorship in a scientific research is an important issue which requires considerable debate. The pressure to publish is well-established in the university community. Faculty member’s performance and promotion are judged by the number of published articles in academic scholarly journals. If survival means publish or perish, any and every effort to see one’s name in print becomes important. In such a situation, we should not be surprised to see the operation of the cliché, “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” (Lazar, 1995)