Prevailing predatory publishing: a critical evaluation of publications from Pakistan’s physical education and sport science domains

Abstract This study critically examined the increasing threat of predatory publications in academia, revealing how researchers at Pakistan’s Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) take advantage of this trend for academic gains. We examined the widespread trend of predatory publishing for Pakistani public and private HEIs, explicitly focusing on Physical Education and Sports Sciences (PESS). We carefully analysed a collection of (345) international articles from 48 faculty members of 26 HEIs (21 Public + 5 Private) until March 2024 extending by July 2024. We excluded 95 articles unrecognized by Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) plus 11 undecided publications. Our results revealed that 214 (89.53%) of 239 so-called recognized international papers were published in hijacked/predatory journals. The authenticity of publications was determined by checking the HEC, Elsevier’s Scopus, and Web of Science (WOS) databases, respectively. Leading predatory publications, the University of Punjab from the public sector has 108 contributions from 5 PESS faculty members with no recognized articles. The University of Lahore, from the private sector, has 104 predatory contributions by 4 PESS faculty members with only two recognized articles. Among all Pakistani universities, PESS researchers from Government College University Lahore won the lead for (15 of 28) recognized research paper contributions with no predatory publication. Predatory publishing affects the credibility of the researchers engaged, posing a threat to the nation’s scientific reputation in the PESS arena. We suggest immediate policy initiatives to address this unethical practice and stress the need to maintain research integrity.