Bug in Springer Nature metadata may be causing ‘significant, systemic’ citation inflation

How to render a publishing ban moot? Change your surname and just keep submitting.

Weekend reads: Journal retracts ADHD intervention papers; ‘Science and the crisis of trust’; letters to editors surge

An Elsevier journal has retracted a study on the placebo effect coauthored by a researcher known for extreme claims that have failed to withstand scrutiny. The move comes after critics said the researchers misunderstood “what a ‘treatment effect’ is.”

"When science is perceived as aligned with political agendas, or when episodes of scientific misconduct receive high-profile media coverage, the legitimacy of science can be damaged, even if such cases are rare."

A week after @bmj.com published a highly publicized paper claiming stem cell therapy can reduce the risk of heart failure, sleuths have unearthed what they are calling “serious” inconsistencies in the data.

Exclusive: Forced to change labs, Kim lost a scholarship and a job offer, and had to repay about AU$90,000 (US$58,400) to his sponsor in South Korea. The university has since offered Kim AU$15,000 (US$9,750) after he sought compensation — although without admitting culpability.

A network of peer reviewers in Italy is targeting medical journals, threatening “both the scientific record and patient safety,” a team of researchers including @deevybee.bsky.social report.

More than three-fifths of the editorial board of a @gigascience.bsky.social resigned after the publication’s operations moved from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, China, and the editors and software team were fired with 30 days’ notice.

Former Australian science agency ecology researcher loses two papers

Weekend reads: Another CDC journal in trouble; Web of Science company endorses Iraq awards; on the scarcity of peer reviewers

@clarivate.com says it takes retractions into account when calculating its highly coveted researcher designations. But Qusay Hassan, who has had 21 papers retracted, was one of several scientists winning accolades at the ministry’s Iraq Education Conference 2025 in Baghdad earlier this month.

The problems were so pervasive they abandoned their review and instead began investigating how widespread image duplication was in their field. Widespread image reuse, manipulation uncovered in animal studies of brain injury

Challenge accepted: A reader wrote a program to find fake references in books

Embattled journal Cureus delisted from Web of Science, loses impact factor

‘A new low’: Researchers at Iraqi university must cite colleagues, school journals in papers, @joelving.bsky.social reports

Weekend reads: NEJM launches rival to MMWR; Former NIH official gets expression of concern; ‘1 in 5 chemists’ added errors to papers: study

Six years after researchers called for the retraction of more than 400 papers about organ transplantation amid suspicion the organs used in the studies came from executed Chinese prisoners, journals are still working to clear the record.

“I have no idea what the impersonator was trying to achieve. Had the organizers not emailed me, but him, with acceptance, would he have shown up pretending to be me? This is very confusing and frankly, disturbing.”

The American Heart Association is reviewing its decision to give an award to the architect of a controversial theory that is the subject of eight retracted papers, Retraction Watch has learned.

"But although AI and automated tools can significantly improve the detection of fraudulent papers before (and after) they are published, some experts believe that their use is analogous to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic."

“We fundamentally believe that publishing less – but better – is essential for the health of the entire research system worldwide,” the authors of the report state.

A journal says it will retract a 2019 paper on an Alzheimer’s treatment after an institutional investigation found research misconduct, according to emails seen by Retraction Watch.

Weekend reads: Spinal researcher gave patients ‘false hope’; HHS admits error in laying off top ethics official; Alzheimer’s fraud trial set to begin

Experts who reviewed the document called the citation requirement “deceptive and despicable” and said it could carry a steep price for the journals involved, one of which is indexed in Scopus.

Controversial Paxil “Study 329” earns expression of concern after critic sues publisher

Thrilled to have you in the centerforscientificintegrity.org family!

Mol apologized to his collaborators around the world whose work has been questioned “because of having me as a co-author.”

A dean and professor at a public university in Iraq has lost another paper just weeks after we reported he was up to 16 retractions for authorship manipulation, fake peer review and other problems.

What would you do if you discovered your name in a list of experts on sex robots despite having never studied sex robots?

"The journalists get the impression that these decisions often are based on more or less arbitrary factors, like knowledge of the law, values and relationship to colleagues and the journalists themselves."

Weekend reads: PubMed during the US shutdown; EU commissioner ‘appears to cite’ discredited study; KPMG corrected ‘phantom’ reference in gov’t report

Dr. Oransky warned of consequences for self-governance failure: "If you don't self-police, if you don't correct the record, if you don't sanction people who commit fraud, [...] someone else will come in and do that. And it very well could be a government that you don't like."

A soil scientist who resigned from several journals in 2017 after being linked to manipulated citations has been appointed to the editorial board of a journal copublished by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media.

A high-ranking official at Iraq’s Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research has earned six retractions over the past two years for issues including citation stuffing and “suspicious” authorship changes after articles were accepted.

“I have given several scientific talks that included our retraction story,” Greer said of the paper, which was retracted in December 2024. “Audience reaction has been uniformly positive.”

The top editors of a criminology journal have stepped down after the society in charge of the publication assessed concerns about manuscript review times.

@timeshighered.bsky.social responds to critics of its rankings methodology.

Several organizations are now putting more than $1 million toward reimagining hiring, promotion and tenure at U.S. universities.

A Wiley journal has retracted a paper more than a year after a researcher reported the work was hers and had been stolen by a reviewer for another journal.

Weekend reads: Science publishing a ‘hot mess’; AI microscopy ‘indistinguishable’ from real; social media as a bellwether for retractions

We don’t know if it’s the fastest retraction ever, but the speed is nonetheless notable: A journal retracted a paper 22 hours after a sleuth raised concerns about the article.

In which our Ivan Oransky calls academic publishing a "hot mess."

A former bioinformatics student who operated a paper mill while at the University of Manchester has lost another paper, bringing his total to 11 retractions.

Made-up citations can indicate the use of generative AI in crafting the paper – but another detail caught his attention as particularly odd: The researchers on the paper, a study on the transformation of the Brazilian coastline, all listed affiliations in India.

Eight papers by two emeritus researchers from @Duke University have been retracted in recent months for alleged image duplications. Although the researchers had worked at the university for decades, Duke officials have not responded to repeated inquiries about the retractions.

Do Journalists Update Retracted Science News? "Results show that retractions, and formal expressions of concern issued to scientific papers, serve as impetus for the update of news, but that this is still a rare journalistic practice."

Weekend reads: U.S. EPA tells scientists to stop publishing; ‘unreliable’ Tylenol research; Alzheimer’s paper retracted

Taylor & Francis has threatened legal action against an online group that has made allegations, based largely on vague insinuations rather than evidence, about the publisher and a member of its research integrity team.

@plosone.org has retracted a paper linking vitamin D levels and COVID-19 morbidity three years after a critic flagged the data in the study as “deeply bizarre.” The authors objected to the retraction, with one calling it “outrageous” and pointing to flaws in the published notice.