Sage has retracted four dozen papers from one of its journals for suspected paper mill activity.
The publisher started an investigation into the European Journal of Inflammation “after we noticed signs of papermill activity in one of the articles,” Laura West, a corporate communications and public affairs manager at Sage, told Retraction Watch.
The investigation found the papers “contain indicators of third-party involvement,” according to the retraction notice, published August 5. Sage and the editor of the journal decided to retract the articles due to “concerns around author contributions to these articles, as well as concerns around the integrity of the research process.”
Many of the retracted papers described research involving samples from patients with diseases like melanoma of the bladder, gastric cancer, diabetes and pulmonary tuberculosis.
The articles were collectively cited 73 times according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, although 21 had not been cited at all and only three had more than four citations. Published from 2018 to 2020, the papers represent 20 percent of the journal’s total publications during those three years.
According to the earliest snapshot of the journal’s manuscript guidelines page on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, the article processing charge in April 2020 was $2,000, meaning Sage took in as much as $96,000 from the publication of these now-retracted articles.
Another Sage journal, the Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, retracted more than 1,500 papers for signs of paper mill activity, with the final two batches retracted in January and April earlier this year. The publisher also issued 116 expressions of concern for articles in The American Surgeon for “concerning author activity.”
Sage isn’t the only publisher grappling with the growing amount of problematic practices across the industry. Frontiers retracted over 100 articles last month for authors and editors manipulating citations and reviewing papers without disclosing conflicts of interest, and Wiley retracted over 200 articles in the International Wound Journal earlier this year for manipulated peer review. Wiley has also retracted over 11,000 papers in journals it acquired from Hindawi, a known target of paper mill activity.
Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on X or Bluesky, like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].