Nature has retracted a recent commentary after the author complained that he had been misled by the relationship of the publication to a financial sponsor and told to avoid critiquing work from the institution. The journal says it is revisiting its “editorial guidelines and processes” in the wake of the case.
Kenneth Witwer, an RNA expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said he had been approached by Nature earlier this year to contribute a piece to one of the journal’s “Outlook” sections.
Outlook sections are sponsored, and in this case, the supporter was Nanjing University in China. One of the institution’s deans and star researchers, Chen-Yu Zhang, had arranged the section and written an article for it as well — a piece Witwer described as essentially an advertorial for Zhang’s questionable research. [Springer Nature, in comments to Retraction Watch, said that “The Zhang piece is advertorial, is clearly labelled as such and uses a different typeface from editorial content to promote transparency.”]
Continue reading Author retracts Nature commentary over concerns about section’s sponsorship
