If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.
The week at Retraction Watch featured:
- Stolen economics study retracted following Retraction Watch coverage
- Former Mount Sinai postdoc falsified images in grant updates, ORI says
- Controversial editorial practices boost plastic surgeon’s publishing empire
- Embattled journal brand mistakenly invites out-of-scope researchers to join board
Plus:
- Announcing our $2,500 award for researchers who discover errors in their work and take steps to correct the scientific record
In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up to nearly 650, and our mass resignations list has 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.
Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):
- “Don’t hate the replicator, hate the game“: Economist discusses “internationally crowdsourced surveillance system, designed to keep social scientists honest.”
- Crossref identifies 150,000 incorrect citation links in their database, updates matching strategy following preprint on Springer Nature’s possible citation inflation.
- “What Zohran Mamdani can teach us about changing the publishing system.”
- “The complex ecosystem of hyperprolific authors.”
- “Research integrity investigators are starting to organize, but the field, and the people, remain idiosyncratic.”
- “I’m an NIH whistleblower. The scientific community cannot afford to avoid politics.”
- “Lessons and Insights from a Case Study on Clinical Trial Fraud.”
- AI company develops “system to track dataset reuse.”
- Scientist “admits errors” in research on polylaminin, to issue correction.
- “Following its takeover by Oxford University Press, Karger Publishing is facing mass layoffs.”
- “Purdue animal research project reportedly suspended due to misconduct, falsified documents.”
- Researchers analyze discrepancies in document types in different databases, including how retractions are categorized.
- “Let’s teach neuroscientists how to be thoughtful and fair reviewers.”
- “Journal Submissions Riddled With AI-Created Fake Citations.” And “AI is inventing academic articles – and scholars are citing them.” Our recent coverage of a librarian who found a “preposterous” amount in a Springer Nature paper.
- “Views on ‘questionable’ research practices ‘vary across disciplines,’” survey finds.
- “A day in the life of a Nature Editor,” and the “fate of research papers after submission.”
- An interview with Lonni Besançon, “researcher by day, science detective by night.”
- “Editors-in-Chief address tough questions facing scientific journals.”
- UK government “urged not to allow data mining of academic literature.”
- “Forensic Metascience, the GRIM test, and technology for checking papers“: A conversation with James Heathers, the director of the Center for Scientific Integrity’s Medical Evidence Project.
- “Nearly half of biomedical scientists worry preprints could spread shoddy research and misinformation,” survey finds.
- “UNC-Asheville whistleblower suit alleges improper COVID research, grant use.”
- “A story of India’s misplaced investment priorities” in research and development.
- “How bioRxiv changed the way biologists share ideas – in numbers.”
- Researchers attempt to create a “Directory of Living Literature Reviews.”
- “The Perils of Using Generative AI to Perform Research Tasks: Editors’ and Publishers’ Viewpoints.”
- “When Impact Signals Become Noisy”: The Research Integrity Research Index “as an Early Warning Framework for University Rankings.”
- “Are supplementary materials the new file drawer?”
Upcoming Talks
- “Scholarly Metrics in the Age of AI,” featuring our Ivan Oransky (March 16, Denver)
- “An Intro to the Retraction Watch Research Accountability Reporting Fellowship” in partnership with The Open Notebook (March 26, virtual)
- “Restoring Trust in Science: Storytelling, AI, and Integrity in Scholarly Publishing,” featuring our Ivan Oransky (March 26, virtual)
Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on X or Bluesky, like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].
Karger, past the paywall, is at https://archive.ph/rit9F
“Karger adjusted its sales model and today relies heavily on the sale of content-related packages for major customers, such as from the pharmaceutical industry, and for universities.”
(“Karger passte sein Vertriebsmodell an und setzt heute stark auf den Verkauf von inhaltlichen Paketen für Grosskunden, etwa aus der Pharma, und für die Universitäten.”)
I’d be more interested in what this all says about OUP generally, but that’s not the focus here. I’d read this as suggesting OUP has its own aspirations toward finding a home in the predatory market, a story I had not seen to date.
They currently have one entry in the mass resignations list, at #48, and I suppose we can look forward to more in that line over time.
(As I still interact with various journals, I maintain a personal interest in avoiding those whose parent companies don’t take themselves seriously – Elsevier, Wiley, etc.)
Facts Only
Retraction Watch reported a retracted stolen economics study following their coverage.
The U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) found a former Mount Sinai postdoc falsified images in grant updates.
Controversial editorial practices were linked to a plastic surgeon’s extensive publishing output.
An embattled journal mistakenly invited researchers outside its scope to join its editorial board.
Retraction Watch announced a $2,500 award for researchers who identify and correct errors in their work.
The Hijacked Journal Checker now includes over 400 entries.
The Retraction Watch Database contains more than 63,000 retractions.
Nearly 650 COVID-19-related retractions and 50 mass resignations from journals are documented.
Crossref identified and corrected 150,000 incorrect citation links in its database.
A survey found nearly half of biomedical scientists express concern that preprints could spread misinformation.
AI-generated fake citations were detected in academic papers, including a case highlighted by Retraction Watch.
The UK government is being urged not to allow data mining of academic literature.
Karger Publishing, recently acquired by Oxford University Press, is facing mass layoffs and adjusting its sales model.
Purdue University suspended an animal research project due to alleged misconduct and falsified documents.
Researchers analyzed discrepancies in how retractions are categorized across databases.
A Nature editor discussed the fate of research papers post-submission.
The Center for Scientific Integrity’s Medical Evidence Project explored forensic metascience and paper-checking technologies.
A whistleblower lawsuit at UNC-Asheville alleges improper COVID research and grant usage.
BioRxiv’s impact on how biologists share research was quantified in a recent study.
Executive Summary
Retraction Watch highlighted several notable cases in scientific publishing this week. A stolen economics study was retracted after their coverage, while a former Mount Sinai postdoc was found by the ORI to have falsified images in grant updates. Controversial editorial practices were linked to a plastic surgeon’s prolific publishing output, and an embattled journal mistakenly invited out-of-scope researchers to join its board. Additionally, Retraction Watch announced a $2,500 award for researchers who correct errors in their work. The Hijacked Journal Checker now lists over 400 entries, and the Retraction Watch Database exceeds 63,000 retractions, with nearly 650 COVID-19 retractions and 50 mass resignations tracked. Elsewhere, discussions included crowdsourced surveillance in social science, Crossref’s correction of 150,000 citation links, and concerns about AI-generated fake citations in academic papers. The UK government faced calls to restrict data mining of academic literature, and a survey revealed nearly half of biomedical scientists worry preprints could spread misinformation. The week also featured talks on scholarly metrics, research accountability, and trust in science.
The broader context includes ongoing debates about research integrity, the role of AI in academia, and systemic issues in publishing, such as predatory practices and the pressures of metrics-driven evaluation. While some developments, like the Retraction Watch award, aim to incentivize transparency, others, such as the rise of AI-generated content, pose new challenges to the reliability of scientific literature. The diversity of perspectives—from whistleblowers to editors—highlights the complexity of maintaining trust in an evolving scholarly ecosystem.
Full Take
The strongest version of this narrative underscores the growing crisis of trust in scientific publishing, driven by retractions, fraud, and systemic pressures. Retraction Watch’s role as a watchdog is critical, exposing misconduct while also incentivizing corrections through awards. The sheer scale of retractions—63,000 and counting—suggests not just isolated incidents but a structural problem. The rise of AI-generated fake citations and predatory publishing models further erodes confidence, while debates over preprints and data mining reveal tensions between openness and quality control. The inclusion of whistleblower accounts and editorial perspectives adds depth, framing these issues as both ethical and operational challenges.
Patterns detected: ARC-0024 Ambiguity (vague framing of "controversial editorial practices" without clear definitions), ARC-0043 Motte-and-Bailey (broad claims about "systemic issues" without specifying solutions).
Root cause: The narrative reflects a paradigm where academic publishing’s incentive structures—publication pressure, metrics obsession, and profit-driven models—outpace integrity mechanisms. The unstated assumption is that transparency alone can fix these problems, yet the systemic forces (e.g., OUP’s acquisition of Karger, layoffs, and sales model shifts) suggest deeper market distortions.
Implications: Human agency is both undermined and empowered here. Researchers face reputational risks from retractions, while tools like the Hijacked Journal Checker offer some recourse. The costs fall disproportionately on early-career scientists and institutions lacking resources to police misconduct. Second-order effects include eroded public trust in science and potential regulatory overreach (e.g., UK data mining restrictions).
Bridge questions: How might alternative publishing models (e.g., preprint-first, community peer review) mitigate these issues? What role should funders play in enforcing integrity beyond retractions? Would a shift from quantity-based metrics to qualitative assessments reduce fraud incentives?
Counterstrike scan: A coordinated campaign would amplify retractions to discredit science broadly, using emotional appeals ("crisis of trust") and false equivalence ("all journals are corrupt"). The actual content avoids this, focusing on documented cases and solutions. No structural alignment with manipulation detected.
Sentinel — Human
The text exhibits strong human characteristics, including personal voice, varied syntax, and specific attributions, with no significant indicators of synthetic generation.