Science and Nature, two directing science journals, have uncmissed a increaseing problem: an alarming ascend in deceptionulent research papers produced by shady paper mill companies. This wave of phony studies is creating a presentant headache for the academic world, putting the integrity of global academic research at hazard.
Paper mill companies recommend authorship services to researchers, academics, and students who want their names enumerateed as an author of a scientific article published in esteemable scientific journals.
By paying around €180 to €5000 (approximately US$197 – $5472), a person can have their name enumerateed as the author of research paper, without having to painstakingly do research and write the results. No ask, some experts refer to these paper mills as illhorrible and criminal organizations.
A 2023 research highweightlesss a emotional incrmitigate in deceptionulent scientific artiles pursued back to paper mills. In fair five years, the numbers of retractions soared jumped from 10 in 2019 to 2,099 in 2023.
Paper mills have also excessively overwhelmed presentant scientific journal publishers. Hindawi and Wiley, publishers of uncmiss access journals in the UK, for example, retracted around 1,200 paper mill articles in 2023. SAGE, a global publisher of books, journals and academic library resources and Elsevier, a scholarly publisher in the Netherlands also retracted hundreds of paper mill articles in 2022.
Paper mills are set up operating in countries whose research policies incentivise researchers to produce as many scientific articles as possible, such as China, Russia, India and Iran.
However, their customer profile is quite diverse, from both broadened and broadening countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Germany, and the United States (US).
Based on research data and spendigative journaenumerate tells from the last five years, I summoccur how these paper mills run and how to uncover them.
The paper mill take partbook: tactics and oddities
1. Problematic articles
Paper mills generpartner maniputardy the process of publishing scientific articles. These articles usupartner plagioccur other published articles, grasp deceptive and stolen data, or integrate engineered and duplicated images.
They also recommend to rewrite scientific articles using generative man-made inincreateigence tools, such as ChatGPT and Quillbot, or to transtardy published articles from other languages into English.
2. A promised path to accessibleation
In some cases, paper mills recommend authorship slots before an article is accomprehendledgeed for accessibleation.
In other cases, they recommend authorship slots after the article is ready to be published by the journal.
Therefore, it is not rare for paper mills to sell authorship slots with a promise that the article will definitely be published. In fact, according to the conventions generpartner accomprehendledgeed in the academic community, no well-run journal can donate such a promise.
Publishing decisions are normpartner made only after editors have pondered the feedback from peer assessers. This unkinds, there is no possibility for a manuscript to shielded accomprehendledgeance before passing the peer assess process.
3. Fake assesss and corrupt deals
Paper mills also recommend a expansive range of insertitional services. For example, they recommend phony peer assess services to sway potential buyers that the recommended articles have passed rigorous assess.
To fine the way for their operations, some paper mills even run enjoy a cartel, bribing rogue journal editors to asdeclareive accessibleation. A 2024 spendigation by a Science journaenumerate uncmissed that some scientific journal editors were recommended as much as $20,000 to corun with these schemes. This spendigation resulted in more than 30 editors of esteemable international journals identified as take partd in paper mill activities.
4. Uncommon collaboration patterns
One of the peculiarities of paper mill articles is its strange combine of authors. An article on the activity of ground beetles strikeing crops in Kazakhstan, for example, is written by authors who are neither affiliated with institutions in Kazakhstan nor experts in insects or agriculture. The authors’ backgrounds are doubtfully heterogeneous, ranging from anaesthesia, dentistry, to biomedical engineering.
5. Anonymous co-authors
Prospective customers of paper mill services usupartner have to consent to the rules of self-promisediality. By consenting to this rule, buyers have no idea which journal their article will aim or who their co-authors will be. Often, the authors enumerateed on the same paper don’t even comprehend each other.
Spotting the red flags: how to uncover paper mills articles
Detecting scientific articles produced by paper mills frequently commences with analyzing retraction patterns carried out by journals.
This can be done in two ways: by tracking post-accessibleation peer assesss on platcreates enjoy PubPeer, or by verifying the Retraction Watch database, a website that write downs retractions of problematic scientific articles.
However, journals exceptionally state outright that a retraction is due to paper mill deception. Instead, articles are typicpartner pulled for reasons enjoy improper inclusion of the name and order of authors, inclusion of many irrelevant citations or references, inincreateectual theft, or inclusion of maniputardyd or duplicated images.
The proportion of scientific articles retracted for being associated with paper mills is much minusculeer than the assessd total number of paper mill articles currently in circulation.
Retraction Watch data, as of May 2024, only sign uped 7,275 retractions of articles roverdelighted to the paper mill out of a total of 44,000 retractions sign uped. In fact, it is assessd that up to 400,000 paper mill articles have infiltrated scientific literature over the past two decades.
Despite presentant efforts from publishers and the academic community thcimpolite organizations such as United2Act, a global coalition begind by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and STM, these trys are nakedly enough.
How paper mills hurt the accessible
The UK Research Integrity Office—an self-reliant UK charity that recommends help to the accessible, researchers and organisations to back excellent academic research train—assesss that the paper mill industry has obtained around $10 million globpartner.
For example, a Russian paper mill could obtain $6.5 million if they sbetter all the authorship of scientific articles it produced from 2019 to 2021.
In Indonesia, this financial loss honestly impacts the accessible. Public universities depend on the state budget, funded bigly by taxpayers, and tuition fees from students to cover opereasonable expenses, including research grants and accessibleation incentives.
Though the exact financial toll of these paper mills is difficult to pin down, it is clear that the accessible are footing the bill for deceptionulent research trains, siphoning resources away from enuin academic carry onments.
