A Sizable Operation of Deceptive Scholarly Publications Thrives on Thousands of Fabricated Research Reports, and the Issue Appears to Be Escalating. "These Networks Operate as Clandestine Criminal Enterprises"
The industrialization of scientific fraud has become a serious concern in the academic world, with sophisticated networks producing and selling fraudulent research papers on a large scale. The findings of a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveal this alarming trend, identifying similar patterns in various journals, including Hindawi and IEEE conference proceedings.
These organizations collaborate with complicit journal editors and authors to bypass peer-review, flood scientific literature with fabricated or plagiarized content, and manipulate citations to inflate reputations. The industrialization of fraud manifests through large-scale production and sale of fake manuscripts, brokerage of authorship slots for money, networks of cooperating individuals and entities, and rapid growth of fraudulent publications outpacing legitimate scientific output.
The consequences for the scientific community and public trust are severe. The erosion of public confidence in science due to increasing exposure of fraud, pollution and distortion of the scientific literature that can mislead researchers and waste resources, and the risk of steering research fields in wrong directions for extended periods are just a few of the concerns.
To address this issue, solutions proposed in science policy and publishing include raising awareness, improved policing and self-regulation, implementing automated and manual screening tools, strengthening cooperation and trust between research integrity officers, publishers, and researchers, policies to deindex or delist journals and articles failing ethical and quality standards, and developing more systemic reforms such as transparency in authorship and funding, stricter peer review, and sanctions for violators.
However, the study found that even some reputable journals have been infiltrated by bad actors, with a very small group of editors responsible for up to 30% of all retracted articles. The rise of generative AI further complicates matters, as AI models trained on tainted literature could compromise their outputs. Fraudulent studies in specific subfields, notably micro-RNAs and long noncoding RNAs in cancer biology, have high retraction rates, up to 4%, compared to 0.1% for more established areas like CRISPR.
Without reform, future discoveries may be built on sand, leading to a slow erosion of trust in one of the most powerful self-correcting tools humanity has ever created. The culture of science must shift to combat fake science, with funding institutions reconsidering how they measure success, journals investing in independent integrity checks, and researchers being supported in choosing quality over quantity.
The study analyzed over five million scientific papers across more than 70,000 journals, tens of thousands of retractions, journal editorial records, and image duplications. The modern scale of fraudulent science is unprecedented, with paper mills estimated to double their output every 1.5 years, while retractions, the scientific community's main corrective measure, are doubling every 3.5 years.
In conclusion, the industrialization of scientific fraud poses a serious threat to the integrity of scholarly publishing and scientific progress. Combating it requires coordinated, multi-pronged responses by the scientific community, publishers, and policy makers to preserve trust and maintain research quality.
- The rising trend of industrialized scientific fraud calls for enhanced research in the field of health-and-wellness, as fabricated or plagiarized content can mislead researchers and potentially lead to incorrect therapies-and-treatments.
- The consequences of scientific fraud stretch beyond the academic world, impacting the future of science, tech, and biology, as flawed research papers might undermine the foundation of future discoveries.
- To maintain trust in science and ensure the integrity of scholarly publishing, science policy can focus on developing systemic reforms, such as transparency in authorship and funding, strengthening peer review, and implementing sanctions for violators.
- As AI models are now trained on vast amounts of scientific literature, the rise of generative AI could unwittingly perpetuate fraudulent studies, with potential implications for various fields, like cancer biology, micro-RNAs, and long noncoding RNAs.
