Nepvakbladen publiceren jaarlijks snel een miljoen nepwetenschappelijke artikelen. Dat is een groot probleem, waarvan wetenschappers zich lang niet altijd bewust zijn, schrijft @stanvanpelt.bsky.social in deze voorpublicatie van zijn boek over wetenschapsfraude. www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/h...

Yesterday, we had the pleasure of listening to Dorothy Bishop emphasize the responsibility of editors during the 12th PCI Webinar! If you weren't able to join, you can catch her talk and the following Q&A session at this link: youtu.be/0NJ87tYE8_s

"...we need to ask why bad acts are selected in the first place and design better systems. Don’t blame the player, redesign the game. If we can put better rules in place, evolution will do the rest." @wcrifoundation.bsky.social theconversation.com/publish-or-p...

For #PeerReviewWeek, I just published my BlueSky posts and notes from the 10th International Peer Review Congress, held 2 weeks ago in Chicago. #PRC10 @peerreviewcongress.bsky.social Part 1 is here: scienceintegritydigest.com/2025/09/16/p...

This is another wake-up call about what is happening with scientific literature, which is being flooded by template papers produced by paper mills. One example is the use of open-access databases like FAERS or NHANES, combined with analyses that rely on biased or incorrect methodologies.

'Publish or perish' evolutionary pressures shape scientific publishing, for better and worse #ResearchIntegrity #AcademicPublishing #Publish #WCRI2026 #WCRI phys.org/news/2025-09...

The education plan of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, cited 15 non-existent sources. #AcademicIntegrity #ResearchIntegrity #Canada #Newfoundland #Education #WCRI2026 #WCRI www.plagiarismtoday.com/2025/09/15/e...

This is how you protect your democracy. The US is a demonstration of what happens when you don't. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

When the Scoreboard Becomes the Game, It’s Time to Recalibrate Research Metrics scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/09/11/g...

An investigation has identified more than 1,500 research articles produced by a network of Ukrainian companies that could be one of Europe’s largest paper mills go.nature.com/3JLlu3n

My favorite part of this story on excellent work by @abalkina.bsky.social and Svetlana Kleiner is when @miryamnaddaf.bsky.social asks the paper mill if they are a paper mill and they respond "it's a secret 😋🙈"

A @bmj.com RCT is comparing effects of use of an #OpenScience checklist on provision of study protocols, code, data, more. Too early to assess reproducibility FX! @mariskaleeflang.bsky.social @ingestegeman.bsky.social @floriannaudet.bsky.social @mlrethlefsen.bsky.social @amsterdamumc.bsky.social

Methods for DISCO II and III (no idea what that means) Comparing 2012 and 2016. Industry-sponsored RCTs had 98% registered - doing really well. Non-industry sponsored did good, 90%. Completion status: Here we found lots of dicontinuation, usually because of poor recruitment. #PRC10

Next: 'Nonregistration, Discontinuation, and Nonpublication of Randomized Trials in Switzerland, the UK, Germany, and Canada: An Updated Meta-Research Study' What proportion of RCTs are registered, discontinued, published? [EB: not sure who the speaker is - another non-informative slide!] #PRC10

#ChatGPT was accurate in identifying changes in RCT outcomes on ClinicalTrials.gov, and completed the entire process (ie, matching, defining, comparing) in ~2 min per trial vs 27 min for humans @ischoolui.bsky.social @colbyvorland.bsky.socia #clinepi #metaresearch peerreviewcongress.o...

APMD: Open science checklist covers 13 open science items, including if code is open and available, if paper is open access, and if preprint is reported. Primary outcome is reproducibility (EB: not sure between what). Secondary: availability of data/code. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... #PRC10

APMD: we randomized 402 papers, and check for reproducibility Conclusion: adding checklists is doable within editorial workflows. (EB: I am not sure which manuscripts were checked and what they were checked for, and what intervention was - does reproduciility mean if data was open???) #PRC10

I’m pleased to experience the 10th Peer Review Congress and present with @mlrethlefsen.bsky.social! Our poster examines the perceptions and experiences of librarian peer reviewers for evidence synthesis methodologies. #prc2025

Risks, barriers to #OpenResearch in UK higher ed id’d in the 2022-23 UK #Reproducibility Network Open & Transparent Research Practices Survey were personal (eg error), systems/institutional (eg resources), ethical/quality @lhughesnoehrer.bsky.social @naubertbonn.bsky.social @manchester.ac.uk

LHN: Open Research is evidently recognized as integral to science. But uptake has been challenging. We surveyed opinions and practices in open and transparent research at 15 HEIs in the UK (2023). We used NVivo14 to organize. Some responses were hilarious, others nasty. #PRC10

NE: What were the consequences of using preprints during this time to policies in: 1. DHS master question list 2. NIOSH Q&A about COVID-19 in the workplace. We compared preprint with postprint abstracts, looking for changes in text, such as simplifications, additions, using NLP and coding #PRC10

Discussion: * Worry about humanizing AI, eg. to include it as an author. * AI gets things wrong and can be manipulated - we still need thoughtful humans to review. * Some AI models will take what you input in it - We ask authors if they are willing to have their manuscript reviewed by AI. #PRC10

What are the neural mechanisms behind short-term #memory errors? This study shows that they are primarily linked to a drift in neural activity in posterior #ParietalCortex, highlighting a need for stable neural representations to support accurate memory performance @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4p85IzD

ZK: AI can help humans to peer review a paper. At NEJM AI, we just reviewed a paper using human editors, two AI models (GPT-5/Gemini) and discussion with human editors. In my opinion, the AI reviews were very high quality, equally good as humans, notificing issues human had missed. #PRC10

ZK: It is easy to use AI to manipulate or make up data. But often, this is done when humans ask it to. There are many other applications where AI is helpful or better. We need to certify data through an analysis chain of provenance with public / cryptographically certified toolkits. #PRC10

Good morning from Chicago! We will start Day 3 (last day) of the 10th International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication. @peerreviewcongress.bsky.social peerreviewcongress.org/peer-review-... #PRC10 <--- This hashtag will give you all the posts!

SV: I would like to ask the scientific community to expect more of journals. We should expect them to be transparent and accountable, just as they expect us to be transparent and accountable. We can chose to review for journals that align with our vision. #PRC10

SV: Transparency is now the default at Psychological Science. We hired our best critics as our editors. New policies: publish peer review history, require open data, declare CoI if editors publish as editors, and conduct reproducibility checks. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... #PRC10

We're bringing together members of the VU community, including research support staff and faculty, who will share their experiences and lessons learned from implementing a campus-wide Open Science program. 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫: cos-io.zoom.us/webin... 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞: Sep 10, 2025 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞: 9:00 AM ET

Late afternoon session: "Peer Review Times and Payment Incentives" with Emilie Gunn @emiliemgunn.bsky.social ‬about "Results of Testing the Gold Standard 2-Week Reviewer Deadline" Editors at JCO Oncology Practice struggle to find reviewers (like all editors!). #PRC10

2.2.1 In an RCT comparing 'uselessly elongated' vs shorter #PeerReview of @neuripsconf.bsky.social 2022 submissions, the longer reviews received higher quality scores, suggesting a length bias among reviewers, w implications for #LLM-generated reviews journals.plos.org/pl...#PeerReview#LLM-generatedscsatcmu.bsky.social

#GPT, prompted to identify trials studying FDA-regulated drugs 2008-2022 w meaningful changes in primary outcomes between trial registrations at study start vs the final record, found 40.7% had changes (14% w outcome additions, 11.5% w removals, 33.4% w modifications) More at

👏 @mariomalicki.bsky.social (#PeerReviewWorkbench advisory board member) “Comparison of Content in Published & Unpublished #PeerReview Reports” showed open reports are longer than traditional unpublished ones ➡️Increased transparency could lead to more details, focus on manuscript improvement #PRC10

At the Peer Review Congress #PRC10, @maclomaclee.bsky.social talks about flaws in meta-research. Often only points out problems, doesn’t test solutions, & often uses suboptimal methods (observational design, convenience samples). Great points, but imo, pointing out problems can be big contribution.

The report also states that review invite acceptance has decreased in ScholarOne submission system from ~48% in 2018 to ~34% in 2025

Silverchair released a report on the Future of Peer Review - www.silverchair.com/news/tech-tr... indicating that reviewers are largely in favor and looking forward to transparent peer review. However data on survey methods, invites and response rate is lacking.

In a comparison of overall summary results with vs without #ImmortalTimeBias (ITB) in 12 systematic reviews addressing 21 clinical topics, evidence reversal occurred in 5 (23.8%), where results changed from statistically significant to not (or vice versa) after excluding studies with ITB #biostats

The great @maclomaclee.bsky.social on the future of journal articles: as the numbers of journals, articles increase, the value of the information they provide diminishes or depreciates. Discrete actions can help sustain the value as an economic (and moral?) good @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social #CAMARADES

So @maclomaclee.bsky.social had a slide here saying that only 2 plenaries at this conference ID’d an issue, proposed intervention, randomized and preregistered. Funny enough I am an author on both. Gotta walk the walk.

We will start with the Douglas G. Altman Lecture, by Malcolm MacLeod (online presentation) - @maclomaclee.bsky.social‬, with "Does the Journal Article Have a Future?" MM is presenting online, because hard to enter US and out of protest to a hostile environment to scientists. #PRC10

First: Jae Il Shin with 'Bias, Study Outcomes, and Reporting Concerns Immortal Time Bias Prevalence and Effects on Estimates in Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses' Immortal time bias = ? (I cannot follow this talk because introduction slide was shown too short). #PRC10

A meta-perspective by Malcolm Macleod on the presentations at #PRC10. Are we going for low hanging fruit too much in research on peer review / publication?

MM: Actions: * Require all research to have institutional sponsor, guarantee work was done as described * To be supported by public protocol * Conduct in house-statistics / methodological review * Facilitate, not obstruct, evidence synthesis efforts (and he will run the Berlin Marathon!) #PRC10

MM: It can take a long time between submission and publication; some of what gets published is biased (positive results) or fabricated (paper mills). Metaresearch paper often describe problems but do not offer solutions. #PRC10

MM: Scientific publishing: The denuding of public assets to augment private or corporate wealth. Some scientific publishers make lots of profits. They are supposed to add value, but do they? (I have trouble hearing what speaker is saying). #PRC10

Next: Leslie McIntosh @mcintold.bsky.social‬ with: 'How a Questionable Research Network Manipulated Scholarly Publishing' Authorship and transparency are both trust markers in science. Emails/institutions/funders can be used as trust markers #PRC10

Full abstract at

Full abstract at

#RetractoBot auto-emails authors when papers they've cited are retracted. An RCT comparing it vs no notice showed no diffs in 1y citations @bengoldacre.bsky.social @ndevito1.bsky.social @bennettoxford.bsky.social @ox.ac.uk @oxprimarycare.bsky.social www.retracted.net/#RetractoBotcc: @retractionwatch.com

JI: Retractions were overrepresented, in particular in group 1. These extreme concentration patterns distort citation-based metrics. Not necessarily misconduct, but outliers that need to be considered in interpreting metrics. We need better metrics to probe gaming of metrics. #PRC10