In June 2021, Espen Flo Bødal began to believe that a paper he’d co-authored had been stolen. The news came via a ResearchGate alert that the Norwegian researcher’s work had been cited, according to the publication Universitets (article in Norwegian). When Bødal checked the alert, he saw that part of his doctoral thesis had been … Continue reading Norway demotes Hindawi journal after claims one published a stolen paper
Three major publishers have removed several authors’ names from five papers, most published a decade ago, following correspondence from an attorney representing one of the individuals. Three of the papers appeared in PLOS ONE in 2013, one appeared in Springer Nature’s Tumor Biology the same year, and one appeared in Elsevier’s Obesity Research & Clinical … Continue reading In unusual move, publishers remove authors victimized by forger
A government expert committee in Pakistan last year cleared a university vice-chancellor of plagiarism charges based on inconsistent claims of ignorance, Retraction Watch has learned. The committee, which was convened by the Higher Education Commission (HEC), also appears to have flouted rules that would have held the vice-chancellor responsible even if he had no knowledge … Continue reading Gov’t committee in Pakistan lets plagiarizing vice-chancellor off the hook
Who doesn’t love a list? The 500 best rock songs of all time. The 100 tallest buildings on the planet. The 10 smartest dog breeds. The 14 silliest place-names on earth (with Middelfart, Denmark in the six-spot, you can only imagine the places you’ll go.) In October, the Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, and Rehabilitation tried – … Continue reading Here’s one article that won’t be making any top 50 papers list
Have you heard about hijacked journals, which take over legitimate publications’ titles, ISSNs, and other metadata without their permission? We recently launched the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker, and will be publishing regular posts like this one to tell the stories of some of those cases. Certain legitimate journal types are particularly susceptible to hijacking, including niche or … Continue reading How many times can a journal be hijacked?
Citing an investigation by Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, two journals last week retracted five articles by Edward Whang, an associate professor of surgery at the school. The journals, Oncogene and Surgery, both refer to problems with images of Western blots that could not be resolved because “no underlying research data” were … Continue reading Harvard surgeon has five papers pulled following internal investigation
More than a year after we reported on two websites advertising authorships of scientific papers for sale, one of the posted articles has been retracted, while publishers say they are still investigating others. The retracted article, “Dynamic simulation of moderately thick annular system coupled with shape memory alloy and multi-phase nanocomposite face sheets,” appeared in … Continue reading Paper with authorship posted for sale retracted over a year after Retraction Watch report
A group of cancer researchers once all based at Harvard have earned a retraction after acknowledging data duplication “errors” in an article published more than eight years ago. The paper, “Synthetic lethality of combined glutaminase and Hsp90 inhibition in mTORC1-driven tumor cells,” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in … Continue reading Former Harvard researchers lose PNAS paper for reusing data
The journal that published a hotly contested article by a professor at Harvard Law School arguing that Korean women forced into sexual slavery during World War II were willing prostitutes has reaffirmed a prior expression of concern over the paper, but stopped short of retracting the article. However, the International Review of Law and Economics … Continue reading Scholar calls journal decision on ‘comfort women’ paper ‘rotten at the core’
With retractions piling up and more than a dozen expressions of concern now added to the list of his publishing woes, a urologist in Iran claims his research is being targeted by American drugmaker Johnson & Johnson. Mohammad Reza Safarinejad, who offered no evidence for his allegations, says he retired from academia about 10 years … Continue reading Urologist blames Big Pharma as concerns mount over his research