April 8, 2026
SEOUL – Quacquarelli Symonds, a global university rankings provider, said Monday it may open an internal investigation into Yonsei University and Korea University if formal, evidence-backed reports of malpractice are filed.
The two schools face scrutiny in Korea over allegations that they recruited overseas scholars to boost their global rankings through the resulting affiliations.
QS said it has not yet determined whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant an investigation. If an investigation is launched and malpractice is found, possible measures could include suspension, changes to data processing methods and exclusion from the rankings.
“If any evidence of potential malpractice is reported to us, then we conduct our own investigation into it to evaluate the impact and issue a response accordingly,” QS told The Korea Herald in response to a question on whether it plans to investigate the two universities.
The controversy centers on whether the recruitment of overseas researchers with limited involvement in teaching or on-campus activities may have inflated research output metrics used in global rankings.
A QS official explained that, in principle, if an author lists multiple affiliations in Scopus, all affiliated institutions receive credit for the paper.
However, the official said QS excludes affiliations in different countries from the scholar’s primary institution as registered in Scopus, a global academic publications database. It also uses bibliometric analysis and applies an affiliation cap to screen papers listing more than a certain number of Scopus affiliation IDs.
These measures are intended to prevent disproportionate gains in research metrics through extensive multi-affiliation listings.
While not all of its screening processes for suspicious research patterns are public, QS said it closely monitors the number of institutions a researcher claims affiliation with and the research output associated with those affiliations.
QS added that appointing overseas researchers without requiring meaningful residence, teaching or other substantive academic engagement is not inherently problematic.
“It entirely depends on the nature of the research project,” a QS official said. “If, for example, the researchers are engaged in legitimate research on behalf of the university and using university resources, then it is a legitimate project.”
However, the official said it becomes problematic if researchers are appointed in name only, without meaningful research collaboration or use of university resources.
The official added that the QS screening process also flags fluctuations in employee numbers and requires unusually large changes to be backed by evidence.
“The QS rankings are designed as a balanced framework in which multiple indicators interact with and inform one another,” the official said. “If a university were perceived to be acting unethically or failing to uphold standards of academic integrity, this would not exist in a vacuum.”
Yonsei University and Korea University came under scrutiny last week over reports that they recruited overseas scholars with little academic engagement or residence in Korea in an apparent bid to boost their positions in QS and Times Higher Education rankings.
An analysis of Scopus revealed that many foreign scholars are listed on the faculty rosters of the country’s two leading private universities despite neither living nor teaching in Korea.
In a statement provided after the first publication, Korea University denied the allegations, stressing that K-Club, its program recruiting overseas researchers, is part of a wider global trend of remote research collaboration.
It added that the scholars attend K-Club conferences and engage in meaningful academic exchange.
THE could not be reached for comment.