Introducing two sites that claim to sell authorships on scientific papers

Two years ago, we reported on a website based in Russia that claimed to have brokered authorships for more than 10,000 researchers. (Apparently, neither our coverage nor a cease-and-desist letter from Clarivate Analytics had any effect on the site’s operations.)

And now, we bring you news of what look like two very similar sites — one out of Iran, and one out of Latvia.

The site in Iran, Teziran.org, claims to offer a variety of services, from help with immigration issues to scientific training. What caught our eye in particular was a section of the site (pictured above) that lists a number of “articles ready for acceptance” — at least by Google Translate:

ISI Collaborative Article Printing or ISI Collaborative Paper Printing is one way to help researchers who are having difficulty doing their research; Also, researchers who do not have sufficient expertise to write an article and, for example, are not fluent in English or specialized editing; Or people who do not have the facilities (space, tools, workshop, etc.) to do the research they want completely and sufficiently; Or those who do not have the necessary knowledge to collect data and do not know the research method completely, and many other researchers with various issues. This group of people can use the ISI collaborative article printing method and contribute to the writing of the article as possible.

Several of the articles had already been published. When we tried to verify that authorship of the listed papers were ever in fact for sale, however, we found what appears to be a very different story. 

The corresponding authors of two of the papers denied ever having offered to sell authorships on the site. Both said our requests for comment were the first they’d heard of Teziran.org. We’re keeping them anonymous, since they don’t appear to have done anything wrong, but here’s a sampling of their comments:

I do not know why my paper is listed there. I never bought this paper from anyone or sold this paper to anyone!

I am very angry about this.

I have just called Teziran.org and pretended that I need the papers and asked them about some information about the papers. Even they did not know that what the contents of the papers were about.

The site blamed the listing on a different author, who, it turns out, had asked at one point to be removed from the manuscript because two other authors had added collaborators he could not vouch for. The author said, however:

I do not know why the paper was put on tezblog.org, it is pathetic if anyone did that.

The corresponding author of another paper listed on the site told us:

[W]e have never had any contact and relation with Teziran.org and it was an unknown illegal source for us.

In the next few days, we want to complete a complaint and go to court.

After one member of one of those authorship teams contacted Teziran.org, the entire list of papers disappeared. Teziran.org has not responded to our requests for comment.

Over in Latvia, Science Publisher Company also claims to offer authorships for sale:

As one of the largest providers in scientific publications, SIA Science Publisher offers its services to publish ready-made articles on a wide variety of topics. You can buy an author’s position or an entire article. Initially, our finished articles are designed for a team of six authors. By purchasing an entire article, you can increase the number of contributors for that article. Co-authors can also make their suggestions and corrections to the text of the article.

The company lists dozens of articles whose authorships they say are up for grabs, with fees starting at $650 USD.

Science Publisher Company did not respond to our requests for comment, either.

Related: Some publishers have been willing to add authors to papers they didn’t write, too.

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