Weekend reads: The scale of misconduct in China; toxic peer reviews; license to publish?; an editorial revolt

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The week at Retraction Watch featured a researcher at Northwestern who’s up to five retractions; a retraction because editors found it implausible that a researcher could perform a clinical trial single-handedly; and seven retractions at once when a researcher blamed a flood for lost data. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

• “In China, bad research can be worth gold.” Neue Zürcher Zeitung uses our database to explore misconduct in China.
• “Journals should take action against toxic peer reviews.”
• “Researchers should be required to pass exams accredited by professional bodies to prove they have the skills to publish, argues John Sumpter.” (Times Higher Education)
• “Journal Editor’s Anti-Transgender Statements Spur a Revolt by Disability-Studies Scholars.”
• “If we put in place a rigid set of requirements that submissions must meet to be eligible for publication in [Psychological Science], we risk losing the very diversity we hope to attract.” An interview with the new editor in chief of Psychological Science.
• Impact factor: “We complain about it (“It has no meaning!”) and then we extoll it (“This candidate has published several high impact papers!”).”
• “I am a full professor, fully employed, but I am contemplating getting a second job to support myself and my research.”
• “Six years after his dismissal from Mexico’s most prestigious university, Berenzon’s history of plagiarism apparently didn’t disqualify him from employment at the government’s leading scientific body.”
• A now-retracted paper is promoted as a journal’s most-cited since 2018. Does that suggest a problem?
• Altmetrics: A great tool for seeing mentions of publications, but not necessarily a useful metric. A retraction notice is now “In the top 25% of all research outputs” on the basis of a tweet and blog post from us.
• A writer named John Anthony Glynn falsely claimed to have a PhD and used the fake credential to publish over 40 articles in 15 different publication outlets in 2019 alone,” according to an apology in Skeptic.
• “The University could also revoke a degree in cases of plagiarism or research misconduct.” A new policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
• “More than a year after U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) leaders ignited a firestorm with a plan for limiting the agency’s use of scientific research, they still have no clear answers on how fundamental aspects of the proposed regime would work, according to an update recently provided to an independent advisory panel.”
• “Each of us, the next time we’re on a search or tenure-and- promotion committee, can commit to reading applicants’ papers instead of counting them.”
• “We’re an all-women team chosen to edit political science’s flagship journal,” write the incoming editors of the American Political Science Review. “Here’s why that matters.”
• “I deeply disagree about publishing this.” Some scientists are uncomfortable with the “gay genes” study published last week.”
• “After all, if a finding that has been replicated hundreds of times can be shown to be false and illusory, why should one believe anything else in that field?”
• “Diversifying Peer Review by Adding Junior Scientists: Initiatives to train and include early-career researchers in peer review may help improve science’s quality control.”
• Scholars boycott a society’s meeting because of allegations “that its president engaged in sexual harassment and bullying.”
• “Issues of alleged plagiarism and sexual harassment in Malaysia’s tertiary learning institutions will be addressed, Education Minister Maszlee Malik has said.”
• “Eminent historian Romila Thapar, who has been a strong critic of the Centre’s policies, has been asked by Jawaharlal Nehru University to submit her CV to allow it to decide if she should continue as professor emerita.”
• How researchers can navigate registered reports.
• “Despite the recent calls for transparency and integrity in research, our analysis shows that most scientific journals need to update their [instructions to authors] to align them with practices which prevent detrimental research practices and ensure transparent reporting of research.”
• “Dear plagiarist, you copied my data but you made mistakes!”
• “Three failed replication attempts but no retraction for HIV study.” And an editorial on the subject by Science editor in chief Jeremy Berg.
• “What keeps journal editors up at night? Inclusion issues, along with plagiarism and other kinds of fraud, according to a new report from the Committee on Publication Ethics.”
• “And on stage, leaders in the movement debated whether to embrace practices like publishing in journals, establishing their own peer-review system, and starting conversations with regulators.” Biohackers take stock.
• “[W]e stayed out of this round of back-and-forth to avoid giving Medscape readers the whiplash that comes from reporting on every single conflicting study on a given topic.”
• In Taiwan, “If proposed new regulations are approved, researchers who have papers ghostwritten would need to return their government funding, because the draft would classify the practice as misconduct.”
• “These 10 institutions published the most papers in Nature and Science in 2018.”
• “Most journals have improved their general ethical publishing requirements but none address unethical organ donation practices.”
• “The life sciences benefit from death — the death of star researchers.”
• “Could a New Project Expose Predatory Conferences?”
• “About 30 University of California faculty members suspended their editorial services for Elsevier’s journals starting Aug. 7 to protest the publisher’s alleged lack of productive negotiations with the UC.”
• “When the articles were first published, I did not believe this work could be perceived as a potential conflict of interest. My view has since changed.”
• “Despite its critical importance, [peer review] curiously remains poorly understood in a number of dimensions.”
• PeerJ Preprints will stop accepting new submissions as of September 30.
• “Our study was limited to the investigation of retracted articles and notices in the National Library of Medicine PubMed database. However, using ‘Retraction Watch’, Drs Li and Mol were able to find an additional six RCTs retracted owing to scientific misconduct.”

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