Retraction Watch Staff

Cheers to 2025: In which Retraction Watch turned 15, and The Center For Scientific Integrity really became a center

We always enjoy our annual review of the year at Retraction Watch, and 2025 is no exception. But we’re more excited about what lies ahead than what we already accomplished.

We’re on track for our second-highest year for pageviews — 6.6 million. This year we brought you more than 300 posts. Among our most-read stories this year include ones on metrics: The most-read of the year was on universities whose publication metrics show signs of “questionable authorship practices.” Also among the most-read stories was one on the 20 journals that lost their impact factors this year for citation issues.

Fakery was also a theme in 2025. A story on a Springer Nature book full of fake references and one on dozens of papers with fake company affiliations were among the most popular of the year.

Weekend reads: Court tosses out challenge to ORI funding ban; prof steps down after AI citation ‘scandal’; senator seeks journal’s COVID-19 manuscripts

This is our last Weekend Reads of 2025. Our annual wrap-up at Retraction Watch will come next week, but we’re already looking forward to a new year. If you value the work we do – the in-depth reporting at Retraction Watch, the daily curated links in our newsletter, our comprehensive Retraction Watch Database – please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

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Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity. Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, the Elisabeth Bik Science Integrity Fund and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Professor in India adds coauthors who ‘kindly covered’ publication fee, removes others
Court tosses out researcher’s bid to overturn funding ban
The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now has 400 entries

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now has 400 entries

Sham journals that mimic real ones can fool unsuspecting authors who are submitting a manuscript, researchers looking for references for papers — and even indexing services aiming to be comprehensive in their coverage. For three years, researcher and sleuth Anna Abalkina has been tracking these clones in the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker.

Earlier this month, Anna’s list of hijacked journals surpassed 400 entries. We took the opportunity to ask her about the list’s history, what happens to journals on the list, how to spot a potentially hijacked journal, and more.

Weekend reads: ‘How long does it take to kill zombie papers?’; ‘The H-Index of Suspicion’; former Springer editors launch new journal

Dear RW readers, we look forward to wrapping up the week with Weekend Reads. If you enjoy it too, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity. Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Exclusive: In reversal, former vice chancellor in Pakistan who was let off hook for plagiarism faces sanctions
Dana-Farber settles suit alleging image manipulation for $15 million
‘Elite cohort’ of biz school scholars and editors scratch each others’ backs, study finds
ORI has released just two misconduct findings this year
World Bank report ‘removed for review’ of nonexistent references after Retraction Watch inquiry

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Dana-Farber settles suit alleging image manipulation for $15 million

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has settled a lawsuit filed under the False Claims Act, admitting researchers used images and data that were “misrepresented and/or duplicated” in support of grant applications to the National Institutes of Health. Dana-Farber agreed to pay $15 million to settle the claim.

Sleuth Sholto David filed the claim in April 2024, about three months after he first posted about the allegations, which played a key role in Dana-Farber’s decision to retract or correct dozens of studies. Authors of some of those papers were among senior leaders of the institution, including president and CEO Laurie Glimcher.

As is typical in such cases, the complaint remained sealed while the Department of Justice investigated. As part of the agreement, David will receive $2.63 million, or 17.5 percent of the settlement.

Weekend reads: Springer Nature retracts papers using ‘bonkers’ dataset; preprint server welcomes AI authors; ethics editors’ COI disclosures ‘insufficient’

Dear RW readers, we look forward to wrapping up the week with Weekend Reads. If you enjoy it too, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation.

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

How to juice your Google Scholar h-index, preprint by preprint
One of Kazakhstan’s top nuclear physicists also leads his nation in retractions
COPE’s involvement leads to retraction of paper on homeopathy for lung cancer
Journal removes funding statement from hormone therapy paper without issuing correction

Did you know that Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity? Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Weekend reads: ‘The fall of a prolific science journal’; Clinical trials by ‘super-retractors’; ‘How to Study Things That May Not Exist’

Giving Tuesday was this week, and, like many organizations, we asked for your support. The work we do is funded in part by your donations. If you value our work in rooting out scientific fraud and misconduct, exposing serial offenders, spotlighting how to fix broken systems — and bringing you this newsletter — please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation.

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Iraqi journal suspected of coercion, two others dropped from major citation databases
Authors retract Nature paper projecting high costs of climate change
The case of the fake references in an ethics journal
Number of ‘unsafe’ publications by psychologist Hans Eysenck could be ‘high and far reaching‘
Glyphosate safety article retracted eight years after Monsanto ghostwriting revealed in court
Nature paper retracted after one investigation finds data errors, another finds no misconduct

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Weekend reads: How an MIT student’s AI study ‘Fell Apart’; Egyptian scientists, Russian affiliations; the ‘dangers’ of bibliometrics with ‘polluted data’

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Exclusive: ‘Highly problematic’ policy has Saudi university pressuring faculty to cite its research
Meet the researcher aiming to halt use of ‘fundamentally flawed’ database linking IQ and nationality
After realizing a fungus contaminated their experiments, researchers retract and redo study

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Weekend reads: Our cofounder credited in fake citation; ‘Substantial’ undisclosed COIs in psychiatry research; an AI threat to online surveys

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Computing society pulls works for ‘citation falsification’ months after sleuth is convicted of defamation
Research integrity conference hit with AI-generated abstracts
AI unreliable in identifying retracted research papers, says study
Lancet journal retracts COVID-19 metformin paper nearly 2 years after authors request correction
Springer Nature flags paper with fabricated reference to article (not) written by our cofounder
COVID-19 paper by scientists at Harvard, Duke gets expression of concern for ‘unreliable’ data
Exclusive: Reviewer recommended against publishing paper on DNA in COVID vaccines

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Weekend reads: Debunking ‘When Prophecy Fails’; ‘Godfather of AI’ first to reach 1 million citations; ‘Cake causes herpes?’

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Author changes name, publishes 10 papers in journals that banned him
Bug in Springer Nature metadata may be causing ‘significant, systemic’ citation inflation
Math is back as Clarivate boosts integrity markers in Highly Cited Researchers list
BMJ places expression of concern on heavily criticized stem cell paper
AMA ethics journal shutters after 26 years
Botanists plant a stake in oral cancer research with case report, now under investigation

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

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