Weekend reads: India institutes face penalties for retractions; editors resign after publisher sold; should the Tuskegee Study be retracted?

Dear RW readers, can you spare $25?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• University dean’s attempt to correct a paper turns into a retraction
• Wake Forest cancer lab blames ‘honest mistakes’ for retractions
• Springer Nature to retract machine learning book after our coverage
• ‘Biased’ and ‘unethical’: Journal objects to Scopus delisting
• Director of Cambridge toxicology institute retracts paper for potential image manipulation

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 60,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

• “Institutes, universities will face negative marks for retracted papers” in India rankings.
• “Editors stage mass resignation after academic publisher sold.” See also our Mass Resignations List.
• Should the Tuskegee Study be retracted?
• Editorial: “NIH’s publication fee changes promise reform but add to chaos.”
• “NASA won’t publish key climate change report online, citing ‘no legal obligation’ to do so.”
• “Oxford University Press to stop publishing China-sponsored science journal.”
• Researchers ask: “Are questionable research practices considered a successful career strategy?”
• Professor accused of sexual harassment also accused of plagiarizing sexual harassment paper. 
• A “president was accused of plagiarism. 10 months later, the investigation still isn’t done.”
• “How AI is shaking up scientific publishing.”
• “I worked for 20 years for the HHS office that safeguarded people in research studies. DOGE gutted it.”
• “Quality of scientific papers questioned as academics ‘overwhelmed’ by the millions published.”
• Is publication bias “as Old as Science Itself?” 
• “Will anyone review this paper? Screening, sorting, and the feedback cycles that imperil peer review.”
• “Should I tell anyone that I suspect misconduct in a paper I’m reviewing?”
• “Scientific norms shape the behavior of researchers working for the greater good.”
• After losing a paper for retracted citations, authors of a 2009 paper suggest distinguishing between “direct” and “indirect” retractions.
• Researcher from embattled university loses 25 papers, many for “image duplication and/or manipulation.”
• “Gender differences in retraction rates exist but are modest,” say researchers. Our coverage of a different study on the same topic.
• “Elsevier journal under fire over ‘AI-generated’ review comments.” A link to our coverage of the journal, which is on hold in Web of Science.
• “China tops the world in artificial intelligence publications, database analysis reveals.”
• Russian university department head and teachers receive prison time for bribes in dissertation defenses.
• Judge won’t force professor “To Pay Legal Fees for Bloggers Who Accused Her of Data Fraud.”
• “Commercialization of scientific misconduct and the challenge of paper mills in research.”
• “In India’s top 100, but lagging on global rankings“: Lokman Meho’s Research Integrity Risk Index applied to India’s NIRF.
• Professor “awarded $725,000 in settlement against university” five years after allegations of racism. 
• “NIH to dismiss dozens of grant reviewers to align with Trump priorities.”
• “Data manipulation within the US Federal Government.”
• “Publication of data sharing statements in clinical trials by cardiovascular journals: a quantitative and qualitative analysis.”
• “Preprints and Journals: A Model Publishing Ecosystem.”
• “China’s journal ranking system stands up to scrutiny,” says the director of the group responsible for the rankings. 
• Education minister nominee “apologizes for plagiarism accusations, defends position at hearing.”
• “Experts share how academic publishing must evolve to meet modern scientific and societal challenges.”
• “How to Become an Integrity Sleuth in the Library.”

We’re hiring!

Assistant researcher, Retraction Watch Database
The Assistant Researcher will enter data into an existing database, locate source material from searches through various publishing and indexing platforms or from spreadsheets, and quality-check existing entries as assigned. Learn more and apply here. Deadline: August 15.

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