Norway demotes Hindawi journal after claims one published a stolen paper

In June 2021, Espen Flo Bødal began to believe that a paper he’d co-authored had been stolen. 

The news came via a ResearchGate alert that the Norwegian researcher’s work had been cited, according to the publication Universitets (article in Norwegian). When Bødal checked the alert, he saw that part of his doctoral thesis had been published, essentially word for word. 

But instead of his name and those of his collaborators at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the article listed researchers at the Huzhou Power Supply Company and North China Electric Power University as its authors.

The allegedly pirated article, “A Stochastic Rolling Horizon-Based Approach for Power Generation Expansion Planning,” appeared in a special issue of Mathematical Problems in Engineering, a Hindawi title that was one of 19 recently delisted from Clarivate’s Web of Science for failing to meet quality criteria. 

Hindawi’s special issues have had problems with paper mills, according to independent researcher Dorothy Bishop. Wiley, which acquired Hindawi in 2021, recently disclosed that it paused publishing the special issues for three months, losing $9 million in revenue. Last year, the publisher retracted more than 500 papers after discovering manipulations in the peer review process. 

Bødal and his doctoral advisor Magnus Korpås suspect that their article was copied when they submitted it to a journal that ended up rejecting it. Their article was published in Electric Power Systems Research, an Elsevier title, on Jan. 2, 2022.  

We attempted to contact the editor-in-chief of Mathematical Problems in Engineering, Guangming Xie of Peking University, but received no reply. We also did not hear back from the article’s corresponding author, Xinji Wang, of North China Power Electric University.

When Bødal and his doctoral advisor Magnus Korpås’ complaints to Mathematical Problems in Engineering and Hindawi went nowhere, Norway’s registry of journals moved to demote the title so researchers in the country wouldn’t get credit for publishing their work in it. The registry will discuss removing more Hindawi journals at a future meeting, an advisor told us. 

Norway produces a database of validated journals that scholars are encouraged to publish in, called the Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers. The database has a hierarchy, with some journals at level 1 and others at level 2.

Level 2 journals are the most prestigious, but publishing in level 1 journals also earns authors credit, Lena-Cecilie Linge, a senior advisor about the contents of the publication register, told us. Norwegian educational authorities use the publication tallies to reallocate research funds among different universities, Linge added.

The concerns about Mathematical Problems in Engineering, which had been a level 1 journal, first led to changing its status to “level x.” The status change from level 1 to level x allowed for an investigation into the journal and publisher’s practices, and further concerns about paper mill activity in Hindawi journals came to light. 

Today the journal is level 0; any Norwegian scholar who wishes can still publish in it, but neither they nor their institution will get any credit for doing so. 

“We removed the journal mainly because of the journal’s response to the Norwegian scholars behind the original article,” Linge told us. The official removal decision provided by Linge reads:

The journal was listed as level x after consultation with the publication committee in mathematics. The journal published a stolen article and did not remove the article after making the editors aware of the article’s origin. During the last 6 months the journal have receive new worrying comments also linking the journal to machine produced articles (papermills) and the publication committee in mathematics advise us to remove the journal from the registry as a valid level 1 journal. The national board of scholarly publication have chosen to follow the advice from mathematics.

Per S. Refseth, a librarian who has taken an interest in this case, told Universitets – an NTNU publication – that he believes all Hindawi journals should now be removed from the publication register, not just Mathematical Problems in Engineering (article in Norwegian). Refseth points to the research showing that Hindawi journals can become outlets for paper mills. 

“Yes, of course much Hindawi content is valid,” Refseth told us, noting that the problems with paper mills appear to be concentrated in Hindawi special issues. His request to remove all Hindawi journals from the publication register is meant to be temporary, Refseth added, “until Hindawi has shown that they maintain the minimum standard which is expected of an academic publisher.” But if the register only removes some Hindawi journals, Refseth would support that decision.

In any case, appears that Refseth’s desire for a sweeping Hindawi demotion will not be realized, at least in the near future.

“The National Board of Scholarly Publishing, who has the final say in approving journals, series, and publishers, has decided that we must consider each journal independently. So, we will not automatically downgrade all the Hindawi journals in the Register,” Linge told us.

That said, she added that other Hindawi titles will be evaluated at the next meeting to discuss the register, which will happen this June.

Update, 2200 UTC, 3/30/23: Headline corrected to note that one journal, not multiple journals, was delisted. We regret the error.

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