Articles · 2025
The Ministry of Great Contradictions: on the 2025 Academic Promotion Regulations
Professor Mohamed Al-Rubeai
Written in Arabic. Below is an English summary — read the full article in Arabic ←.
A short, sharp critique of the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education's Academic Promotion Regulations No. 10 of 2025. The chairman argues the regulations represent "the height of academic alienation": a system that sanctifies the idol of publication while despising the spirit of research, reducing the scholarly career to a frantic race to accumulate printed papers with no regard for added knowledge or impact.
He warns that compelling academics to publish "at any price" has thrown the doors open to paper mills, citation brokers and plagiarism — and notes the bitter paradox of a ministry that has withdrawn all financial support for research, leaving academics to fund their own work, while imposing requirements that rival countries spending billions on their laboratories.