Wired no paywall – “A new study by researchers at Northwestern University has set off alarm bells about the future of academic research, warning that the publication of fraudulent science is growing at a faster rate than that of legitimate research. Over the last four centuries, an implicit contract has been established between scientists and states: in exchange for producing knowledge useful for economic and social development, governments and other benefactors offer researchers stable careers, good salaries, and public recognition. This model, similar to that of a commercial enterprise, has proven to be efficient and has been replicated in most regions of the world However, recent research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) [The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly – full text – Open Access] reveals that, in recent years, this system—composed of researchers, academic institutions, government agencies, private companies, and dissemination platforms—shows signs of breaking down… The research team behind this paper, led by Luis A. N. Amaral, professor of Engineering Science and Applied Mathematics at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, reached this conclusion after analyzing large volumes of data on retracted publications, editorial records, and image duplication. Sources included major aggregators of scientific literature—such as Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed/MEDLINE, and OpenAlex—as well as lists of journals removed from these databases for violating quality or ethical standards. In addition, data on retracted articles flagged by the investigative website Retraction Watch, comments on the science-paper review site PubPeer, and editorial metadata (editor names and submission and acceptance dates) were also collected and analyzed.
This analysis highlighted the work of “papermills”—unscrupulous organizations that mass-produce low-quality manuscripts and sell these, sometimes through intermediaries, to academics looking to publish material quickly. These papers often contain falsified data, manipulated or copyright-infringed images, plagiarized content, and even absurd or physically impossible claims. “These networks are essentially criminal organizations, acting together to fake the process of science,” Amaral said in a statement published by Northwestern University. The researchers warn that more and more scientists are engaging with these networks, where they are not only acquiring articles, but also citations and authorship positions in papers, allowing them to appear prestigious without having conducted their own research…”
