Last year, a researcher at a U.S. university received an email offering what the subject line described as a “great opportunity to publish an article.”
The author of the email, Mahdi Shariati, an adjunct professor of civil engineering at Ton Duc Thang University, in Vietnam, said he had read one of the researcher’s papers and was impressed by its quality. “It would be an honor for me to collaborate with you and jointly present your remarkable work,” Shariati added.
In exchange, Shariati promised:
1. Guaranteed Publication: I can assure you that our collaborative research papers will be published in prestigious journals with high impact factors. This will ensure that your research receives the recognition and visibility it deserves.
2. Lifetime Citations: By partnering with me, your published papers will continue to receive citations, contributing to their enduring impact within the academic community. Given the reach of my work and its visibility among researchers in this field, this collaboration offers an opportunity for your research to be seen and referenced by a wide audience.
With more than 12,000 citations to his name, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, Shariati ranks among the most highly cited researchers in his field. He is a frequent referee for journals from major publishers and this year has been a guest editor for both Sage and MDPI.
But the researcher who received the offer to collaborate felt Shariati’s profile was “very suspicious.” According to Shariati’s Google Scholar page, he is affiliated with Anhui University of Technology in China, topping the list of the institution’s most-cited researchers, in addition to Ton Duc Thang, where he also features among the top-ranked scientists. Citation manipulation and other problematic publishing behavior have lately come under scrutiny in Vietnam.
Meanwhile, in several recent papers, Shariati lists his institution as UTE University in Quito, Ecuador. His LinkedIn profile says he is based in Australia and is open to hybrid and remote work as a visiting researcher or professor.
We emailed Shariati to ask how he was able to guarantee publication and citations even before seeing the manuscripts he suggested coauthoring. We have not heard back.
According to our database, Shariati has earned three retractions for issues including duplicate publication, plagiarism, authorship manipulation and image manipulation.
PubPeer posts offer some clues to the engineer’s impressive publication metrics. A paper in Springer Nature’s Engineering with Computers, for instance, cited 61 works by Shariati, according to a comment left by scientific sleuth Nick Wise.
Wise noted authorship of the paper had been advertised prior to publication on the messaging platform Telegram and that Shariati had been a reviewer for Engineering with Computers.
Two other papers flagged on PubPeer also included questionable citations of Shariati’s work. One, on using neural networks to diagnose disease from CT scans, referenced six articles by him on construction materials. Another, on stability analysis of laminated microsystems, used a somewhat generic phrase to cite eight works by the researcher.
Wise told us if Shariati’s email “is able to deliver on what it offers then it is very concerning. The only way that publication can be guaranteed is with a corrupt editor. Likewise, the only way that continual citation of a work can be guaranteed is by some artificial arrangement to persuade authors to cite the work.”
He added: “There are many other similar papers to the one I noted [on PubPeer] with dozens of references to Shariati each.”
Shariati’s email came from a domain associated with Calut Consulting, an Australian company held by Kavir Group and headed by Mojtaba Shariati. According to his LinkedIn profile, Mojtaba Shariati is also the CEO of Shariati Corporation, a construction firm in Iran. It is not clear if the two Shariatis are related.
Calut states on its website:
We assist with every stage of your publication process, from preparing your manuscript to selecting the appropriate journal, submitting your paper, and helping with revisions until it is successfully published.
The company’s team includes “highly skilled researchers and professionals with diverse expertise across multiple disciplines: including environmental science, civil and mechanical engineering, artificial intelligence, and health sciences,” according to the website.
Mahdi Shariati has coauthored at least one paper with a researcher, Emad Toghroli, who lists his affiliation as “Department of Civil Engineering, Calut Company Holding, Melbourne, 800, Australia.” Mahdi Shariati also coauthored a paper with Morteza Shariati, who listed Monash University Malaysia and Kavir Company Holding as affiliations.
We sought comment from Calut Consulting, but have not heard back.
The academic who shared Shariati’s email with us said the message “seems to be a template where he only changes [the recipients’] names and the” titles of the papers he said had impressed him.
Our source requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, explaining, “If a person X in a citation/peer review cartel finds out a given researcher Y has exposed him/her, then X will use the cartel to cancel all of us (my colleagues and I). The network of X, in this case, is massive.”
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Not only is the editor corrupt, but it is also likely a scam. I once received a promotion promising guaranteed acceptance to a special issue with the ability to invite specific reviewers.
I have roles at that publisher and immediately realized it was fake. I logged in the editor’s system and searched for that special issue: there were 18 submissions, but none passed the initial check by the publisher’s office. They were directly rejected before the guest editor could even see them.
How do you cancel a researcher on X without making stuff up?