Earlier this year, Klaus Heese, a professor at Hanyang University in Seoul, noticed a review article he’d worked on had finally been published. But his name wasn’t on it, nor was that of another scientist who had also been involved in preparing the manuscript.
Instead, two professors Heese didn’t know had been added as authors on the paper, which appeared in June in Natural Product Communications.
Alarmed, Heese emailed Sivakamavalli Jeyachandran, an associate professor at Saveetha University in Chennai, India, and one of the corresponding authors of the article. Heese had received an invitation in 2023 to help with the review from a former collaborator, Arulmani Manavalan, who was working with Jeyachandran and her student Hethesh Chellapandian.
Retraction Watch readers may be familiar with Saveetha University, also known as SIMATS, as well as Jeyandran and Chellapandian. We have written repeatedly about the institution’s attempts at gaming its publication metrics to boost its rankings. Following one of our investigations in Science, a Springer Nature journal began retracting AI-written commentaries by the dozens, many of which were coauthored by Chellapandian and Jeyachandran, as we reported at the time.
According to Heese, he and his coauthors submitted their manuscript to two journals, Biomimetics and Heliyon, without success. Both versions of the paper listed Heese as a corresponding author. One stated he contributed to “writing, editing, formatting, reviewing, [and] language correction,” while crediting Manavalan with “review and editing” and Jeyachandran and Chellapandian with “Conceptualization and [writing] sections of the manuscript.”
A later version of the manuscript with the filename “Jeyachandran et al. 2024-May-19” stated Jeyachandran and Manavalan “contributed to conception and design of the study,” Chellapandian “wrote sections of the manuscript,” Manavalan contributed “writing and editing” and Heese “writing, editing, formatting, reviewing, language correction.”
In correspondence he shared with us, Heese suggested trying a new journal after the two rejections. But Jeyachandran was slow to react, and in May 2024 she stopped responding altogether. Heese assumed Jeyachandran had abandoned the project.
More than a year later, Heese stumbled on the paper in Natural Product Communications. It mentioned neither his nor Manavalan’s contributions, but stated instead the review had been conceptualized by Chellapandian and Kiyun Park, a research professor at Chonnam National University in Yeosu, South Korea. According to the new authorship-contribution statement, Park also contributed to “formal analysis,” “data curation” and “writing” of the paper.
A new corresponding author, Ihn-Sil Kwak, a nationally renowned professor at Chonnam and an editor of Ocean Science Journal and the Journal of Ecology and Environment, contributed to “validation,” “resources,” “supervision” and “project administration and funding acquisition,” the paper stated.
The funding sources also changed with each iteration of the manuscript. The version submitted to Biomimetics stated the work had no external funding, the one sent to Heliyon declared support from a National Research Foundation of Korea grant, whereas the paper in Natural Product Communications declared funding from another National Research Foundation of Korea grant.
When Heese emailed Jeyachandran about the published paper in October of this year, asking for comments “before I take further action,” the Indian researcher promptly wrote back.
“We sought your assistance after facing rejection from several journals due to a lack of direct connections,” Jeyachandran told Heese on October 7. “As a result, I decided to proceed with publication alongside my previous research group. The manuscript was written by one of my students, and my postdoctoral mentor, Prof. Kwak, kindly covered the APC charges after a significant delay.” (Natural Product Communications charges authors US$3,000 to publish.)
The next day, however, Jeyachandran expressed contrition. “I unfortunately overlooked including your name in the author list,” she apologized. “This was a genuine mistake on my part and in no way reflects the value of your contribution to the manuscript.”
She added: “I truly appreciate the time, insights, and support you provided during the conceptualization and development of the review. Your input was instrumental in shaping the manuscript, and it was never my intention to disregard your role or effort.”
Heese didn’t buy it. In an email sent October 9 to a large number of journals and organizations – including Natural Product Communications, Saveetha and Retraction Watch – he laid out what had happened and attached a draft version of the manuscript showing he had revised the text throughout and reformatted the reference list. Manavalan had “extensively revised and prepared” the figures, Heese wrote.
“The file ‘Jeyachandran et al. 2024-May-19’ is nearly identical — word for word, including references, tables and figures — to the paper now published,” Heese wrote.
He also pointed to Jeyachandran’s two Google Scholar profiles, one of which excluded her many retractions, and urged “other journals” to “scrutinize publications by” Jeyachandran and Chellapandian.
“I would like to mention that I am not requesting to be added as an author to the published paper. Rather, I recommend that Natural Product Communications retracts this article due to ethical violations,” Heese concluded his email.
In an email to us, Jeyachandran changed her explanation once again. “It became evident during the course of the project that Prof. Klaus [Heese]’s contribution was minimal, both intellectually and operationally and he has not done extensive work” on the manuscript, she told us.
“In light of the lack of significant scholarly contribution, and in adherence to standard authorship ethics, the decision was taken to omit Prof. Heese from the final publication,” she added. ”The authors (Prof. Kiyun Park and Prof. Ihn-sil Kwak) from South Korea have supervised this research project and provided research support and contribution.”
Her new Korean coauthors did not respond to requests for comment. But in an email from October 17 addressed to Heese and copying Jeyachandran, Chellapandian and Kwak, Park, a member of Kwak’s lab, said he “had absolutely no prior knowledge of the matter you described.”
”Our research group takes this issue with the utmost seriousness,” Park added. ”Professor Sivakamavalli must regard this situation as an opportunity for sincere reflection and correction of his behavior. Should there be no substantial improvement, our team will immediately suspend from any ongoing or future collaboration with Sivakamavalli.”
Laura West, corporate communications and public affairs manager at Sage, which publishes Natural Product Communications, told us the “case is currently under investigation. While the investigation is underway, we don’t have any further information to share.”
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It’s unfortunate that researchers continue to indulge in such unethical practices that end up showing their institution and importantly the country in a bad light. Scientific integrity is the need of the hour and sensitization of researchers on need to do ethical and quality research with strong penalities for misconduct is a must. By the way, Jeyachandran has been mispelt as Jeyandran at one place in the article, not that it matters a lot though. 😃
These unethical practices have become common phenomenon in state Universities and colleges for the sake of promotions and any paper by indian authors having coauthors from saudi and neigbouring countries are involved in similar kind of unethical practices which need to be stopped and stricter regulations should be implemented for the sake of maintaining integrity in Science.
I clicked on the link of this “prof. Shivakamavalli Jeyachandran”. It took me to the OFFICIAL university page of the professor. “SHOCKING” is what best describes how her profile is written! Is this even a real university?? The profile switches between “me/my” and “he” constantly. First…that is just wrong (“my research is in aqua marine… After PhD he started working”). Second, the English is bad. And finally, who is this “he”? This is clearly a woman and she also identifies as a woman. Didn’t she check that throughout her biography….her gender has changed? Or is this also GPT- generated?
Ghost authorship is rampant and unethical besides misleading novice as an expert in a scientific field. It has greater consequences infecting intellectual competitors. But the greater threat is the corporate indexing agency who silently killing quality journals and sweeping away under the carpet. India should identify and recommend quality journals from its soil. Strict regulations should be framed and put in action for wrong doings in the field of research and publications. What makes an author to run for a 3 laks of spending for a publication. The greedy publishers and the authors should be black listed. Make compulsory research publications in quality Indian journals. It is rare to find authors from developed countries upublish in India journals. But vice versa happens. It is high time to train and test our scientists and educationalists for patriotism too
The title is problematic in how it foregrounds nationality rather than conduct. If the issue is unethical authorship practices, the relevant identifiers are the individual and the institutional context, not the country. Mentioning “Professor in India” adds no analytical value to the substance of the case and instead risks turning a specific allegation into a nationalized narrative.
If similar incidents occur elsewhere, they are not routinely titled “Professor in the U.S.” or “Professor in Germany.” Singling out the country here implicitly invites readers to generalize misconduct to a national or cultural level, which is neither accurate nor fair.
Responsible academic reporting should focus on verifiable actions, accountability mechanisms, and institutional responses, not geographic labeling that serves no explanatory purpose.
I understand your concern, and it’s good to be mindful of the kinds of bias you’re describing. But searching retractionwatch actually returns many articles with the word “German” or “Germany” in the title (e.g., “Cancer Researcher in Germany Loses Multiple Papers After Misconduct Finding”), so I don’t see any evidence for the double standard you’re suggesting in this case. When reporting an event, it’s quite common to include where the event occurred as a key piece of information. It serves a descriptive purpose if not an “explanatory” one.
I have been actively collaborating with international colleagues for more than 25 years now; all my publications include authors from different labs around the world. These are all experimental studies with scholarly and scientific contributions from each laboratory and person. This is an essential aspect of proper collaboration, as some laboratories have expertise in the area the study needs. My understanding of international collaboration is genuine.
I handle manuscripts for a couple of traditional, established journals that also publish open-access articles for a fee. Most of the manuscripts are published free of cost, but for subscribers. Whenever the Editor-in-Chief asks me to process manuscripts with authors from different countries, I personally take an interest and go through the manuscript (mostly reviews, yes, just literature reviews) carefully. Authors are from various places/countries/continents, have never published together before, and are not experts on the topic they are reviewing. I am an old-timer, and believe that all reviews should have some value in the literature, with potential intellectual and scientific perspectives and prospects described as well. When this is lacking, I outrightly reject these reviews with my critical assessment. However, I notice that this is now a trend! This should be avoided, and all such reviews and suspicious manuscripts should be desk-rejected immediately. This may not happen because some journals operate through an editorial office located in a country other than that of the Editor(s)-in-Chief/Associate Editors. Paying APCs and getting/including authorship has become routine these days, but not all get noticed, unfortunately. A real concern…
Most Indian private universities seem to love appointing such gamers to ensure profits above all else. Even after such reports, the universities or their regulating bodies do not bother to take any action. Both the science, and qualified people are among the casualties of this system.