by publisher – Retraction Watch

A new journal record: Sage title retracts 678 more papers, tally over 1,500

The retraction of “a final batch” of 678 articles concludes Sage’s investigation into questionable peer review, citation manipulation, and other signs of paper mill activity at one of its journals, according to the publisher.

Sage has been investigating the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems (JIFS) since early 2024 for “indicators that raised concerns about the authenticity of the research and the peer review process underlying these articles,” a Sage spokesperson told us. We reported in August on Sage’s retraction of 467 articles from the journal. The publisher retracted another 416 papers in January. With this latest batch, “our investigation into JIFS is now concluded,” the spokesperson said.

Sage acquired JIFS in November 2023 when it bought IOS Press. The indexing company Clarivate raised concerns about the quality of the articles in the journal shortly after and put the journal’s indexing on hold. Its entry on the Clarivate website still shows the “on hold” flag.

Replication probe finds ‘statistically improbable data’ tied to institute in Bangladesh

A Bangladesh-based organization focused on development economics and its founder have been churning out papers filled with misstatements, inconsistencies, ethical lapses and “statistically improbable data,” according to researchers involved in an ongoing effort to replicate the work.

One journal has already retracted a paper for falsely claiming to describe a randomized, controlled trial and data collection that failed to adhere to the journal’s ethical guidelines. The study, published in the European Economic Review, was retracted following a March 11 report from the Institute for Replication, or I4R. The group is conducting a broader probe into the Global Development & Research Initiative (GDRI), the organization that implemented the intervention described in the paper.

GDRI’s founder and the study’s sole author is Asad Islam, a developmental economist at Monash University in Australia. Since 2022, Islam has received over $2 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and other organizations, according to a copy of his resume. Islam did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the retraction or the broader concerns about the work. But in a statement posted to his now-deleted account on X, he wrote:

A ‘joke’: Paper with ‘completely irrelevant’ citations retracted

A paper that made the rounds last year for its blatantly “irrelevant” citations has now been retracted.

Elsevier’s International Journal of Hydrogen Energy published “Origin of the distinct site occupations of H atom in hcp Ti and Zr/Hf” in November 2024.

Paragraph seven of the introduction consists of a single sentence: “As strongly requested by the reviewers, here we cite some references [35-47] although they are completely irrelevant to the present work.” One of the authors told us they included the references as a “joke” after reviewers pressured them.

All 13 of the references include Sergei Trukhanov as an author, and all but one also includes Alex Trukhanov.

Math journal editors resign to launch open-access title ‘free from pressure or influence’

The managing editors and entire editorial board of Mathematical Logic Quarterly, a Wiley title, have resigned, citing “unilateral decisions” by the publisher “that affected the editorial process.”

“We do not believe that Wiley is currently providing an environment that allows the editors to do their editorial work according to the standards of the academic community and free from the negative influence of commercial and profit-oriented interests,” the editors wrote in their resignation letter.

The editors have launched a new journal with a “diamond” open-access model, not charging fees to read or publish papers.

Former Italian university head faces retractions and criminal investigations

A prominent Italian pharmacologist under investigation for embezzlement and rigging university contracts has garnered a dozen and a half retractions in the last year for image alterations and duplications.

But Salvatore Cuzzocrea, the former rector of the University of Messina, told us he did not agree with the retractions because they were decided “without clear communication,” and that none of the papers had problems that he wasn’t able to reply to.

Cuzzocrea, a professor of pharmacology at Messina, is set to face an Italian court over rigging bids for university contracts and is under investigation for allegedly embezzling more than 2 million euros worth of reimbursements.

Misappropriation of undergraduate work leads to study retraction

Researchers in Australia have retracted a 2020 nanotechnology study after their institution’s research integrity office found the paper had misappropriated the work of undergraduate students at their school.

According to the retraction notice, the study stated the data belonged to an industry consulting project when in fact they originated from undergraduate work. The notice reads:

Post-publication, the University of Sydney’s Research Integrity Office found that the article misrepresented research data as being derived from an industry consultancy project when it was from an undergraduate unit of study. In doing so, the work of the undergraduate students and a tutor for the unit of study was misappropriated.

COVID-19 vaccine myocarditis paper raises questions about what earns post-publication peer review

On March 7, a Sage journal published an expression of concern for an article on cases of myocarditis in people who had received a COVID-19 vaccine.

“The Editor and the publisher were alerted to potential issues with the research methodology and conclusions and author conflicts of interest” and had undertaken an investigation of the article, the notice stated. According to one of the authors, the investigation involved two new peer reviews of the paper.

We’ve reported on many cases of authors disagreeing with retractions other publishers issued after conducting post-publication review processes. The papers often involve hot-button issues – pesticide poisoning, the effect of vaping on smoking rates, an estimation of deaths from the use of hydroxychloroquine early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and President Trump’s role in spreading vaccine misinformation on Twitter before the company suspended his account.

Wiley journal retracts over 200 more papers

The International Wound Journal has retracted 242 papers so far this year as part of an ongoing investigation into manipulated peer review.

We reported in December the journal, a Wiley title, had retracted 27 papers as part of an investigation. A Wiley spokesperson told us the 2025 retractions are part of the same ongoing investigation, and that the editors “anticipate additional retractions in the weeks to come.”

All the retraction notices list manipulated peer review and share similar text, like the notice from this retraction of a 2023 paper:

Dental researchers fabricated data in two articles, university investigation found

Two former professors and a former graduate student at Osaka Dental University in Japan reused images between three published articles, according to the findings of an institutional investigation.

The school released the findings of its investigation in January, with a full report in Japanese. The university has not responded to our request for comment.

According to a machine translation of the report, the university found former graduate student Helin Xing, former assistant professor Isao Yamawaki, and former associate professor Yoichiro Taguchi were involved in misconduct. A recent paper of Taguchi’s lists his affiliation as Matsumoto Dental University in Nagano, Japan. He and Xing have not responded to our requests for comment. We were not able to find a current affiliation or email address for Yamawaki.

Five studies from “Bust Size and Hitchhiking” author retracted

A journal has retracted five papers about the appearance, sexual behavior and attractiveness of women.

Nicolas Guéguen, a professor of marketing at the Université de Bretagne-Sud in France, was an author on each of the papers, published in the Sage journal Perceptual and Motor Skills (PMS) at least 15 years ago. All of the articles garnered expressions of concern in 2023, but Guéguen’s history of misconduct long precedes the PMS papers.

Sleuths have been flagging Guéguen’s work for years for seemingly impossible results. In 2019, he was cleared of wrongdoing by his university, but since then has racked up at least four retractions, according to the Retraction Watch database.

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