By Dr. Tim Sandle
SCIENCE EDITOR AT LARGE
DIGITAL JOURNAL
October 6, 2025
Science is advancing our understanding of the human body (photo taken at the Wellcome Centre, London) —Image by © Tim Sandle
A new study uncovers coordinated efforts of paper mills, brokers and infiltrated journals, each a victim of scientific fraud. Researchers have identified how the publication of fraudulent science is beginning to outpace the growth rate of legitimate science.
This can happen as some researchers pay for papers, authorships and citations in order to build up their reputations. This comes from a Northwestern University study.
By combining large-scale data analysis of scientific literature with case studies, the researchers led a deep investigation into scientific fraud. Although concerns around scientific misconduct typically focus on lone individuals, the n study has uncovered sophisticated global networks of individuals and entities, which systematically work together to undermine the integrity of academic publishing.
The problem is so widespread that the publication of fraudulent science is outpacing the growth rate of legitimate scientific publications. The authors argue these findings should serve as a wake-up call to the scientific community, which needs to act before the public loses confidence in the scientific process.
When people think about scientific fraud, they might remember news reports of retracted papers, falsified data or plagiarism. These reports typically centre around the isolated actions of one individual, who takes shortcuts to get ahead in an increasingly competitive industry.
To add to these practices, the researchers have uncovered a widespread underground network operating within the shadows and outside of the public’s awareness. To conduct the study, the researchers analysed extensive datasets of retracted publications, editorial records and instances of image duplication.
Most of the data came from major aggregators of scientific literature, including Web of Science (WoS), Elsevier’s Scopus, National Library of Medicine’s PubMed/MEDLINE and OpenAlex, which includes data from Microsoft Academic Graph, Crossref, ORCID, Unpaywall and other institutional repositories.
The researchers also collected lists of de-indexed journals, which are scholarly journals that have been removed from databases for failing to meet certain quality or ethical standards. The researchers also included data on retracted articles from Retraction Watch, article comments from PubPeer and metadata — such as editor names, submission dates and acceptance dates — from articles published in specific journals.
After analysing the data, the team uncovered coordinated efforts involving “paper mills,” brokers and infiltrated journals. Functioning much like factories, paper mills churn out large numbers of manuscripts, which they then sell to academics who want to quickly publish new work. These manuscripts are mostly low quality — featuring fabricated data, manipulated or even stolen images, plagiarized content and sometimes nonsensical or physically impossible claims.
To identify more articles originating from paper mills, the Amaral group launched a parallel project that automatically scans published materials science and engineering papers. The team specifically looked for authors who misidentified instruments they used in their research. A paper with those results was accepted by the journal PLOS ONE.
Fraudulent networks were found to use several key strategies:Groups of researchers collude to publish papers across multiple journals. When their activities are discovered, the papers are subsequently retracted.
Brokers serve as intermediaries to enable mass publication of fraudulent papers in compromised journals.
Fraudulent activities are concentrated in specific, vulnerable subfields.
Organized entities evade quality-control measures, such as journal de-indexing.
Sometimes such organizations go around established journals altogether, searching instead for defunct journals to hijack. When a legitimate journal stops publishing, for example, bad actors can take over its name or website. These actors surreptitiously assume the journal’s identity, lending credibility to its fraudulent publications, despite the actual publication being defunct.
To combat this growing threat to legitimate scientific publishing, the researcher recommend enhanced scrutiny of editorial processes, improved methods for detecting fabricated research, a greater understanding of the networks facilitating this misconduct and a radical restructuring of the system of incentives in science.
The research appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It is titled “The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient and growing rapidly”.
Science is advancing our understanding of the human body (photo taken at the Wellcome Centre, London) —Image by © Tim Sandle
A new study uncovers coordinated efforts of paper mills, brokers and infiltrated journals, each a victim of scientific fraud. Researchers have identified how the publication of fraudulent science is beginning to outpace the growth rate of legitimate science.
This can happen as some researchers pay for papers, authorships and citations in order to build up their reputations. This comes from a Northwestern University study.
By combining large-scale data analysis of scientific literature with case studies, the researchers led a deep investigation into scientific fraud. Although concerns around scientific misconduct typically focus on lone individuals, the n study has uncovered sophisticated global networks of individuals and entities, which systematically work together to undermine the integrity of academic publishing.
The problem is so widespread that the publication of fraudulent science is outpacing the growth rate of legitimate scientific publications. The authors argue these findings should serve as a wake-up call to the scientific community, which needs to act before the public loses confidence in the scientific process.
When people think about scientific fraud, they might remember news reports of retracted papers, falsified data or plagiarism. These reports typically centre around the isolated actions of one individual, who takes shortcuts to get ahead in an increasingly competitive industry.
To add to these practices, the researchers have uncovered a widespread underground network operating within the shadows and outside of the public’s awareness. To conduct the study, the researchers analysed extensive datasets of retracted publications, editorial records and instances of image duplication.
Most of the data came from major aggregators of scientific literature, including Web of Science (WoS), Elsevier’s Scopus, National Library of Medicine’s PubMed/MEDLINE and OpenAlex, which includes data from Microsoft Academic Graph, Crossref, ORCID, Unpaywall and other institutional repositories.
The researchers also collected lists of de-indexed journals, which are scholarly journals that have been removed from databases for failing to meet certain quality or ethical standards. The researchers also included data on retracted articles from Retraction Watch, article comments from PubPeer and metadata — such as editor names, submission dates and acceptance dates — from articles published in specific journals.
After analysing the data, the team uncovered coordinated efforts involving “paper mills,” brokers and infiltrated journals. Functioning much like factories, paper mills churn out large numbers of manuscripts, which they then sell to academics who want to quickly publish new work. These manuscripts are mostly low quality — featuring fabricated data, manipulated or even stolen images, plagiarized content and sometimes nonsensical or physically impossible claims.
To identify more articles originating from paper mills, the Amaral group launched a parallel project that automatically scans published materials science and engineering papers. The team specifically looked for authors who misidentified instruments they used in their research. A paper with those results was accepted by the journal PLOS ONE.
Fraudulent networks were found to use several key strategies:Groups of researchers collude to publish papers across multiple journals. When their activities are discovered, the papers are subsequently retracted.
Brokers serve as intermediaries to enable mass publication of fraudulent papers in compromised journals.
Fraudulent activities are concentrated in specific, vulnerable subfields.
Organized entities evade quality-control measures, such as journal de-indexing.
Sometimes such organizations go around established journals altogether, searching instead for defunct journals to hijack. When a legitimate journal stops publishing, for example, bad actors can take over its name or website. These actors surreptitiously assume the journal’s identity, lending credibility to its fraudulent publications, despite the actual publication being defunct.
To combat this growing threat to legitimate scientific publishing, the researcher recommend enhanced scrutiny of editorial processes, improved methods for detecting fabricated research, a greater understanding of the networks facilitating this misconduct and a radical restructuring of the system of incentives in science.
The research appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It is titled “The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient and growing rapidly”.
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