by country – Retraction Watch

Exclusive: Sage to retract multiple articles by dismissed rising star for “compromised” peer-review process

Yannick Griep, a former rising star in management research at Radboud University in the Netherlands, is set to lose an undisclosed number of articles from a journal he once edited, Retraction Watch has learned.

In an email we obtained, Sage’s Isabella Austin told editorial board members of Group & Organization Management that following “a thorough investigation into the concerns about peer-review on this journal,” the publisher found the “objectivity of the peer-review process administered by the former Editor in Chief on a subset of articles where they are co-author was compromised.” Those articles, wrote Austin, would be retracted.

Former acting director of national research lab in India adds another retraction

A cancer journal has retracted a paper by a former acting director of an institute in India, bringing her retraction total to nine.

Chitra Mandal, a former senior researcher at the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research’s Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (CSIR-IIC) at Kolkata, served as acting director in 2014-15. She also headed the CSIR’s Innovation complex between 2010 and 2015. She received multiple awards, and was also appointed a Science and Engineering Research Board Distinguished Fellow in 2018.

Mandal has now lost nine articles to retraction and more than two dozen of her papers have been flagged on PubPeer, most for image irregularities or data issues in graphs. In March, Wiley’s Molecular Biology International retracted a 2011 article Mandal coauthored, also for image issues. We previously wrote about an expression of concern on a 2016 paper in which Mandal was a co-author.

The latest retraction involves a 2011 paper in Leukemia Research about the movement of lymphoblasts from the bone marrow to peripheral blood in childhood leukemia. The journal retracted the paper on May 30, citing concerns that some of the data in figures appear to have been manipulated.

Sex pay ban paper earns a retraction after a long and winding road for an unhappy author

In March 2024, Riccardo Ciacci, an economist at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Spain, published a paper claiming Sweden’s ban on buying sex had increased reported rapes by as much as 62%. The finding gained attention on social media, and quickly drew criticism from others in the field.

In particular, a group of three economists took their concerns to social media and to the journal editors, and eventually published a critique of Ciacci’s work. They claimed his analysis reports a statistical relationship not relevant to the finding described in the paper. They concluded there was no large or statistically significant finding.

What followed was a year-long effort to fix the paper, and then ultimately, a decision to retract it. Ciacci, who was not accused of misconduct, said the retraction, which he disagrees with, has cost him a promotion and funding for future research. He also alleges he experienced an onslaught of harassment on social media. In the end, Ciacci maintains the retraction was unjustified, and critics say it came far too late.

Physicist in Iraq fired over publishing scam claims fake Columbia affiliation in new paper

Five months after he was fired by ministerial order, an Iraqi professor of physics at the center of a massive publishing scam submitted a manuscript to a Wiley chemistry journal claiming affiliation with Columbia University in New York City.

The paper also stated the physicist, Oday A. Al-Owaedi, was affiliated with the University of Babylon in Hilla, Iraq, although he was permanently dismissed from his position last year.

As we reported at the time, Al-Owaedi defrauded “researchers by collecting money from them under the pretext of publishing their papers in reputable international journals as promised, while in fact falsifying and forging publication in fake websites,” according to a ministerial order we obtained.

A prolific evolutionary biologist caught faking data decades ago notches a new retraction

A study claiming a tenfold decrease in bugs splattered on evolutionary biologist Anders Møller’s windshield over two decades has been retracted.
*shanecotee / iStock*

Anders Møller, an influential evolutionary biologist from Denmark, somehow survived the blow to his reputation after a high-profile retraction and a finding of scientific misconduct more than 20 years ago.

But a new retraction is once again raising the question of whether that fraud was just a blip in his impressive publication record or further proof, as some claim, that much of Møller’s work rests on a shaky foundation.

The latest paper to fall: Møller’s 2019 study in the journal Ecology and Evolution that reported a tenfold decline in the bugs splattered on his car windshield over two decades. The journal’s editors wrote in their retraction notice that the dataset contained “duplications” and “inconsistencies” that invalidate its conclusions.

Economist outs another Indian university’s rankings-boosting scheme when they refuse to pay him

On May 9, a university administrator in Afghanistan threatened in a LinkedIn post to expose what he called a publishing scam by private universities in India.

“These institutions contact academicians globally, promising payment for publishing research papers that will boost their national and international rankings,” Mohd Asif Shah, dean of the faculty of economics at Kardan University in Kabul, alleged.

The following day, Shah elaborated in a new post: “Four years ago, Woxsen University asked me to publish papers and file patents under their affiliation. I agreed, delivered, and they proudly displayed those publications on their website. Now, after four years, they are denying payment for that work.” He also complained his “patent incentives were being unilaterally reduced” from 40,000 Indian rupees (US$420) to 17,500 rupees (US$184) per patent — “a reduction of over 56%.”

Vietnam researchers face bans and funding cuts for violating integrity rules

*Ton Duc Thang University*, *Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam*

Researchers in Vietnam who fabricate data or plagiarize papers may be permanently barred from future scientific work, according to new guidance from the country’s Ministry of Science and Technology.

The new framework, announced May 25, requires science and technology organizations to implement rules against research misconduct, and it outlines a process for investigating and sanctioning violations. The recommended penalties include written warnings, correction or retraction requests, public apologies, role suspensions, returning research funding, and bans from scientific projects. Violations of scientific integrity must also be recorded in the National Digital Platform for Science, Technology, and Innovation Management, according to the framework.

Researchers who use artificial intelligence inappropriately may also be subject to stiff sanctions. The framework warns researchers should not use AI to create fake data, images, or references nor unverified AI-generated material used as a reference.

Critics of birdsong study fight to be named in Nature’s retraction

A zebra finch in New South Wales, Australia. *Source: JJ Harrison/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)*

Researchers who flagged methodological issues in a paper on birdsong a year and a half before Nature retracted it say they should be credited in the editorial notice. But the editors have refused, with one telling the critics the paper was retracted for unrelated reasons.

The March 2024 study at the center of the dispute looked at how sexual selection may drive song patterns in male zebra finches. Nature retracted the paper last month because two of the synthetic song pairs used in the study were found to be unreliable, according to the notice. All three authors agreed to the retraction.

Todd Roberts, the paper’s corresponding author, told Retraction Watch the critics now asking for credit “prompted us to check the synthetic song pairs used in our paper.” He said his team did not do the reliability analysis of the pairs until after publication.

Widely criticized keto diet study retracted

A 2025 paper claiming the keto diet does not promote the formation of arterial plaques has been retracted after widespread criticism of the study’s methods and claims. The journal found “the identified errors are too great to be corrected with a corrigendum,” according to the March 11 retraction notice.

In April 2025, JACC: Advances published the study, which looked at plaque build-up in 100 otherwise generally healthy people who had experienced an increase in their cholesterol levels while being on a keto diet. The study claimed scans performed one year apart by the company Cleerly showed the diet was not associated with the development of arterial plaques.

This finding went against what previous studies had found, and it led to what Wired called “a new war in the nutrition world.”

New rule in Peru restricts authors with retractions from getting special bonuses

Peru’s Ministry of Education headquarters in Lima.
*ANDINA/Editora Perú*

In an ongoing effort to combat scientific misconduct, Peru has passed new rules that bar research faculty at public universities there from receiving special bonuses if they’ve had one or more retractions in the last three years.

The conditions, published March 2, apply to faculty members at public universities who are eligible for special bonuses funded by the Ministry of Education. Peruvian researchers who participate in one or more research projects qualify for the monthly bonuses, which range from 2,616.50 to 4,434.91 Peruvian soles, or US$699.60 to $1,185.80, according to a summary in the new rules.

The restrictions come after a 2024 investigative commission in Peru identified significant scientific fraud by criminal networks involved in buying and selling academic research. Transactions by three presumed criminal networks amounted to 11.42 million soles, or roughly $3 million, between 2019 and 2023, according to the commission’s report.

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