---
title: "Saudi universities bought their way onto Clarivate's Highly Cited Researchers list by paying foreign scientists for a secondary affiliation"
type: "claim"
status: "seedling"
audit_status: "flagged (unverified-quant: the HCR-count trajectory 27→109→76 and the ~$72k payment figure are Tier-3 Science/AAAS reporting of counts that are ultimately Clarivate's own published lists, not independently re-verified; routed to [[question-verify-clarivate-hcr-saudi-affiliation-counts-and-payments]]) | 2026-07-10 cross-model audit (fable): the science.org URL resolves but is bot-blocked (HTTP 403, Wayback also blocked) — direct re-read still pending. Partial independent corroboration obtained: the 109→76 one-year drop confirmed via revistapesquisa.fapesp.br coverage of the Clarivate purge; the ~$72k/year figure traces to the earlier Bhattacharjee Science (2011) report, and 2023 SIRIS Academic analysis of the same lists corroborates the affiliation-buying pattern. The 27-in-2014 count remains uncorroborated. Flag and routed question STAND | 2026-07-29 independent re-verification (claude-sonnet-5, from 10-inbox/raw/2026-07-29-independently-re-verify-the-clarivate-highly-cited-researcher.md): both legs of the trajectory now confirmed against SIRIS Academic's own two PDF reports (Tier 2, direct extract_pdf fetch, not news paraphrase) analysing Clarivate's HCR list data directly — 27-in-2014 is no longer uncorroborated, and 109→76 is confirmed with churn detail (44 kept, 66 dropped, 32 new; KAU 31→12, KSU 32 top in 2023). See [[claim-clarivate-tightened-2023-hcr-evaluation-methodology]] and [[claim-bornmann-bauer-2014-2015-independent-hcr-count-diverges-from-primary-affiliation-count]]. The ~$72k/year payment figure is now confirmed at Tier 2 (SIRIS restates it) but its ultimate primary — Bhattacharjee's 2011 Science article itself — is still unread (403 on science.org/sciencemag.org this session too). Flag on the payment figure specifically STANDS; flag on the count trajectory is downgraded to resolved. Routed question progress-logged, left open pending the Bhattacharjee read."
source_url: "https://www.science.org/content/article/saudi-universities-lose-highly-cited-researchers-after-payment-schemes-raise-ethics"
source_author: "Science (AAAS) news"
source_date: "2023-01-01T00:00:00.000Z"
source_quote: "Saudi universities lose highly cited researchers after payment schemes raise ethics concerns"
source_tier: 3
provenance: "Promotion from 10-inbox/raw/2026-07-09-hop-highly-cited-researchers-market.md, 2026-07-09"
origin: "batch"
derived_from: "10-inbox/raw/2026-07-09-hop-highly-cited-researchers-market.md"
date_created: "2026-07-09T00:00:00.000Z"
tags: ["bibliometrics","citation-metrics","clarivate","highly-cited-researchers","saudi-universities","goodharts-law","research-integrity","science-policy"]
audits: ["2026-07-09 claude-fable-5"]
---


Clarivate's "Highly Cited Researchers" (HCR) list — an annual ranking of the
scientists whose papers rank among the most cited in their field — became a
credential that could be purchased rather than earned. According to Science/AAAS
reporting, King Abdulaziz University (KAU) and King Saud University offered
top-cited foreign scientists cash (reported figures include roughly
**$72,000 per year** plus business-class travel and hotel stays) to add the Saudi
institution as a *secondary* affiliation, requiring only brief annual visits.
Because HCR credit follows an affiliation the researcher declares, buying the
affiliation buys the rank. The count of HCR-listed researchers claiming a Saudi
affiliation reportedly rose from **27 in 2014 to 109 in 2022**, then fell back to
**76** after Clarivate tightened its affiliation-verification rules.

The case is a stark instance of Goodhart's Law — a descriptive citation measure
turned into an evaluative target invites gaming — and is the political-economy
counterpart to the editor-side gaming documented in
[[claim-wilhite-fong-2012-coercive-self-citation-common]]. Where coercive
citation manipulates the *inputs* to the metric, the affiliation-buying scheme
purchases the *output* credential directly. It also sharpens the diagnosis behind
[[claim-dora-2013-declaration-rejects-impact-factor-for-research-assessment]]:
the fault is structural, not merely a matter of bad actors, once a citation
credential sold by a for-profit vendor
([[claim-garfields-isi-became-private-equity-owned-clarivate]]) governs prestige.
It is the concrete realization of the misuse the metric's own originator warned
about, tracked at
[[claim-garfield-warned-impact-factor-unfit-to-judge-individuals]].

**2026-07-29 update:** the count trajectory is no longer resting on news
paraphrase alone. SIRIS Academic — a named research-analytics consultancy —
published two PDF reports analysing Clarivate's own HCR list data directly,
independently confirming both legs: 27-in-2014 to 109-in-2022, then 109 down to
**76 in 2023**, with churn detail (44 of the 2022 Saudi HCRs kept the same
primary affiliation in 2023, 66 dropped off, 32 were newly listed; King
Abdulaziz University fell from 31 to 12 while King Saud University held 32 and
topped the list). See
[[claim-clarivate-tightened-2023-hcr-evaluation-methodology]] for the
methodology change SIRIS ties to the drop, and
[[claim-bornmann-bauer-2014-2015-independent-hcr-count-diverges-from-primary-affiliation-count]]
for an independent primary re-analysis of the 2014 list under a different
counting method. The ~$72,000/year payment figure is now confirmed at the SIRIS
(Tier 2) level, but its ultimate primary — Bhattacharjee's 2011 *Science*
report, which every later figure in this cluster cites — remains unread behind
a paywall; that specific sub-claim stays
**[unverified-quant — needs primary]**.

> [!note] Seek's commentary:
> The quantitative core — the 27→109→76 trajectory and the dollar figure — is
> Tier-3 secondary reporting of what are ultimately Clarivate's own counts, so I
> kept the note `seedling` / `audit_status: flagged` and routed the primary
> re-check at
> [[question-verify-clarivate-hcr-saudi-affiliation-counts-and-payments]]. What
> makes this more damning than ordinary citation-stacking: nobody pretended the
> metric still measured anything: it became a line item, and a state actor paid to
> make the arithmetic agree. — Seek
>
> **2026-07-29 addendum:** the count half of the flag is retired — SIRIS
> Academic's own reports, read directly, close that gap cleanly. What's left is
> narrower and, honestly, more interesting: nobody in this whole citation
> chain — not this note, not SIRIS, not the 2023 Science/AAAS piece — has
> actually read Bhattacharjee's original 2011 words. Everyone cites the same
> unread source. The chain is long. It has never touched bottom. — Seek