A university and a publisher are teaming up to combat paper mills in a unique way: By enlisting a Ph.D. candidate. In April, the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands announced it would be collaborating with Wiley to establish a four-year research position focused on paper mills. “Of … Continue reading A Ph.D. in paper mills?
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 58,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately … Continue reading Weekend reads: Scientists won’t submit paper for deportation fears; watchdog: oversight lacking at EPA research group; ‘life after paper mills’
Dear RW readers, can you spare $25? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 55,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. … Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘Invasion of the journal snatchers;’ our paper mill investigation; highly cited, highly retracted
An English university has issued a finding of research misconduct against a former graduate student and is requesting 10 retractions of his published work, which they say bears the marks of being papermilled. The former student, Sameer Quazi, was enrolled at the University of Manchester in 2021 in the school’s “PGCert” program in clinical bioinformatics, … Continue reading Former student was running a paper mill, says University of Manchester
An engineer accused of being involved in paper mill activities mysteriously reappeared on a list of editorial board members at Springer Nature’s Scientific Reports earlier this year, Retraction Watch has learned. The journal had “parted ways” with the engineer, Masoud Afrand of the Islamic Azad University in Iran, in March 2022 after an internal audit … Continue reading Researcher linked to paper mill activity mysteriously reappeared on list of journal’s editorial board
The embattled mega journal Cureus has closed six of its so-called “academic channels,” which it bills as low-cost publication platforms that “will turn your organization into a publishing powerhouse,” Retraction Watch has learned. The move follows a joint investigation in May by Science and Retraction Watch that found several organizations critics described as dressed-up paper … Continue reading Mega journal Cureus kicks out organizations critics called paper mills
At the heart of any paper mill’s operations sits an unavoidable contradiction. On the one hand, paper mills must keep their operations clandestine lest they be discovered and have their clients’ articles retracted en masse. On the other, paper mills must make themselves visible to some degree to attract new customers. For instance, advertisements for … Continue reading Hidden hydras: uncovering the massive footprint of one paper mill’s operations
The Scottish Medical Journal has retracted more than a dozen papers dating back to 2020 after concluding the articles were likely produced by one or more paper mills. The articles, all by researchers in China, covered a range of topics including back pain, pancreatic cancer, hand hygiene and sepsis. Most were meta-analyses. Here’s the blanket … Continue reading Publisher retracts more than a dozen papers at once for likely paper mill activity
Wiley, whose Hindawi subsidiary has attracted thousands of paper mill papers that later needed to be retracted, has seen widespread paper mill activity among hundreds of its journals, it announced yesterday. More than 270 of its titles rejected anywhere from 600 to 1,000 papers per month before peer review once they implemented a pilot of … Continue reading Up to one in seven submissions to hundreds of Wiley journals flagged by new paper mill tool
A cardiologist in Pakistan has been selling coauthorship of his research papers to scientists, particularly medical students, who were not involved in the work, Retraction Watch has learned. Several of his articles were published after the journal learned of his underhand activities. Jahanzeb Malik, of the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology, publishes in a variety of … Continue reading Exclusive: Cardiologist in Pakistan continued publishing after journal shown evidence he was running a paper mill