Springer Nature will start issuing expressions of concern notices for books after investigating hundreds of its books for integrity-related problems in recent years.
The publishing giant has seen an uptick in the number of investigations for books. In 2022, Springer Nature carried out 124 such investigations. In 2023, that number grew to 207 in 2023 and 217 in 2024, Svetlana Kleiner, a research integrity adviser with the publisher, told attendees of the World Conference on Research Integrity in Vancouver, Canada, last month.
Springer Nature carried out 210 book-related probes last year, she added, and 81 in 2026 as of mid-April.
Although Springer Nature has retracted books in the past, journal papers attract most of the attention and resources related to research integrity, Kleiner said in her presentation. Readership of books is also lower than that of journals, she added.
Data from the publisher indicates the probes are a result of many different types of issues, including AI-related problems, plagiarism, unverified authorship, duplicate submissions, editorial misconduct and problems with data and images, among others.
Last year, Springer Nature published around 14,500 books. For open access books, its fees for commissioning, editing and hosting individual book chapters start at around $3,000, and can exceed $15,000 for monographs and contributed volumes. Potential buyers of books that aren’t open access can pay up to a few hundred dollars for titles.
In a bid to flag various issues while internal reviews are ongoing, Springer Nature will start issuing notices of concern for books, Kleiner told Retraction Watch in an interview. “The introduction of editorial notices of concern for books provides an additional, proportionate mechanism to ensure transparency in specific cases where needed,” she said. “These developments reflect continuous improvement rather than a response to any single issue and are part of broader efforts across the research ecosystem.”
Springer Nature is now conducting post-publication review of the cases in which their probes indicate various problems may exist. The publisher also is rejecting new submissions from certain projects or individuals while its investigations are ongoing, Kleiner said. “We do continue to accept and publish book content more broadly, alongside continuing to develop our integrity screening tools and processes,” she told us.
“I think it’s a pretty bold move,” said Michał Wójcik, a research integrity consultant and project manager at the scholarly-services firm Sciii based in Berlin, Germany, referring to Springer Nature’s move to start issuing expressions of concern notices for books. He told us he wonders if the publisher’s probe will lead to corrections or retractions of the books in question.
Last October, Wójcik wrote a Python script to identify several books with non-existent citations—a telltale sign of misuse of large language models—after Springer Nature retracted a book on machine learning riddled with fake references following our coverage of the case.
Springer Nature also is considering revamping its peer review process for books. In the past, industry practice has been to have a human reviewer read only the book proposal and one book chapter. But Kleiner said Springer Nature is “moving away from systems based on trust.”
“We are reviewing and strengthening our processes to introduce additional safeguards where appropriate, while maintaining the flexibility required for different disciplines and book types,” she said. The rise of LLMs has presented challenges as well; while the use of generative AI has led to a spike in book submissions, that alone isn’t a reason to retract such content.
Retracting books is complicated, said Stephanie Kinnan, assistant director of publications at the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy in Cincinnati, Ohio, who sits on the council of the Committee on Publication Ethics. That’s because publishers must decide whether to retract individual chapters when the whole book isn’t affected, and because such texts frequently come in multiple volumes.
Due to the surge in research integrity issues, Kinnan said publishers will have to change their models to implement more robust peer review for books, treating each chapter similarly to journal articles. “It’s going to be more laborious, because there’s going to have to be a deeper review going on,” she said.
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