Elsevier is investigating the journal Geoscience Frontiers after a PubPeer thread flagged an editorial advisor whose articles in the journal were edited by his frequent co-authors.
The editorial advisor, M. Santosh, is a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia and a “Highly Cited Researcher” with more than 1,500 published articles, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.
The PubPeer commenter, “Desmococcus antarctica,” noted that two associate editors of the journal, Vinod O. Samuel of Yonsei University in Seoul and Erath Shaji of the University of Kerala in Thiruvananthapuram, India, are often listed as “Handling Editors” of Santosh’s articles published in Geoscience Frontiers — despite each frequently publishing other work with him.
A representative from Elsevier told us the publisher was looking into the matter, adding that “we expect our publishing partners to uphold our publishing policies, including the proper conduct of peer-review.” Elsevier publishes Geoscience Frontiers on behalf of China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and Peking University.
None of the researchers have responded to our request for comment, nor has Xuanxue Mo, editor-in-chief of the journal and professor at China University of Geosciences (Beijing).
Samuel edited at least 20 of Santosh’s papers in Geoscience Frontiers from 2017 to 2024, according to the PubPeer post. “Due to the massiveness of the scale on which this happened,” the Pub Peer comment stops at 20 instances, Desmococcus states.
Samuel and Santosh have co-authored at least 15 papers together in multiple journals, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.
Similarly, Shaji edited at least 10 of Santosh’s articles in Geoscience Frontiers from 2017 to 2024. The two were co-authors on at least 29 papers from 2016 to 2023 in different journals, according to Web of Science.
Desmococcus has flagged many other papers by Santosh in Geoscience Frontiers on PubPeer.
Beyond Geoscience Frontiers, Desmococcus has chronicled similar instances of Santosh’s frequent co-authors editing his papers at other journals, as reported by For Better Science.
In one incident, a report from the 5GH Foundation, a China-based “non-profit organization for promoting science and technology,” alleged Santosh had initially been listed as the handling editor of his own paper at Geoscience Frontiers. The paper now lists Chakravadhanula Manikyamba, a researcher at the National Geophysical Research Institute, as handling editor (although her name is misspelled as “Manikyabma”).
Manikyamba is another frequent editor of Santosh’s articles in Geoscience Frontiers, as Desmococcus points out on PubPeer. She edited at least four of his papers and has co-authored three papers with him since 2022, according to Web of Science.
Santosh’s record also includes a retraction. In 2020, his paper “Hydrocarbon reserves of the south China sea: Implications for regional energy security” was removed “because it inadvertently included unlawful content.” The editor-in-chief of the journal where it appeared, Energy Geoscience, did not respond to our request for clarity on what constitutes “unlawful content,” but an Elsevier spokesperson told us that the authors requested the removal “because they had inadvertently breached legal regulations.”
Elsevier’s website states it will remove an article only in “extremely limited number of cases,” in which the article is “defamatory, or infringes others’ legal rights, and retraction is not a sufficient remedy.” An article will also be removed if Elsevier “has good reason to expect it will be” the subject of a court order, or if it would pose a “serious health risk” if acted upon.
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Any reason why Prof. Santosh has no first name?
I have been wondering about this as well. He does have one, but seldomly uses it. No idea why.
His middle name is ‘Warrior’: https://www.sciencedirect.com/author/55110642200/m-warrier-santosh
His first name is ‘Madhava’:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2013-02/05/content_16200248.htm
In many parts of India, people often use initials instead of full names. E.g., world chess championship challenger Gukesh Dommaru is commonly known as Gukesh D.
I always wondered how M. Santosh and some scientists from NGRI plublishing thier articles with too much fast rate. He published a large numbers of articles in Gondwana Research when he was editor of the journal. Investigation should be made on M. Santosh and scientists from NGRI (also on research scholars, who submitted their thesis on the basis of these articles and got jobs in reputed institution in India). The quality of research in India was deteriorated by these peoples who sit in the reputed institution of India and also make their contacts to establish their scholar on the research institutions as a scientist.
This isn’t strange. All take advantage of their position. They declare that they don’t have a conflict of interest but actually all do have. They just throughly filter new researchers and many times reject their articles without logical explanations.
It is always good story to accuse for manipulation then accepting people’s hard work. Wondering whether anyone have read the research papers or checked Google scholar that how many rising young scientists Santosh has collaborate with. Certainly coach potatoes cannot understand this world is built by others’ diligence.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/gondwana-research/about/news
His first name is Madhava, as listed on the website of the journal Gondwana Research where he’s the editor in chief.
The day of reckoning has finally arrived.
I guess I was not the only one that saw that coming.
The cat is out of the bag…
In additon to the above, i also wish to highlight that M Santosh is responsible for hyping the impact factor of many journals with whom he was associated. Gondwana Research, GR (Elsevier journal) is one of them. As an Editor-in-chief, he would ask the authors to add a few references from Gondwana Research which may not be related to the theme of the paper. One such incident happened with me (and of course with many of our colleagues) and i politely declined to add the suggested references. We were asked by him to add some references from GR which had nothing to do with our article. We politely refused to do so.
GR has an unusual impact factor of 7.2 even now and it is all because of him!! It is certainly not better than EPSL, GRL, Geology, etc., which have impact factor around 4 or so.
He also used to write follow-up mail to the authors suggesting them some themes of their interest and asking them to write joint papers with him for submission to Gondwana Research. It is not surprising that he publishes more than 100 papers every year, and to me this is an impossible task if one follows ethical practices.
Thanks for bringing out and exposing such people.
At every possible level, Santosh has gamed the system. It must have been exhausting for him keeping all of his ‘plates’ spinning on their poles. And for what? Everybody knows his publications list is a sham, and that his pet journals are a joke. Actually, one of my claims to fame is that I have never co-authored a paper with him.
Apropos Elsevier, in another direction –
“MIT libraries are thriving without Elsevier”
https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/16/the-public-sphere/