Frontiers to retract 122 articles, hyperlinks 1000’s in different publishers’ journals to “unethical” community – Retraction Watch

The writer Frontiers has begun retracting a batch of 122 articles throughout 5 journals after an investigation discovered a community of authors and editors engaged in “unethical actions” comparable to manipulating citations and reviewing papers with out disclosing conflicts of curiosity. 

The writer’s analysis integrity staff has recognized greater than 4,000 articles linked to the community in journals owned by seven different firms, based on an organization assertion. The staff stated it’s prepared to share particulars and the methodology of their investigation with different publishers upon request. The firm is a member of the STM Hub, a platform publishers use to share such info. 

As the publishing trade involves grips with its paper mill drawback, many corporations have issued retractions in bulk. Frontiers retracted a batch of 40 in 2023, and a dozen the 12 months earlier than.  

The newest tranche of retractions started to appear July 28. By our depend, no less than 25 had been posted that day. According to one of many notices, that are equivalent for every paper, the writer’s investigation “identified this article as one for which the integrity of the peer review process has been undermined, resulting in the loss of confidence in the article’s findings.” 

The investigation “was not able to determine whether all authors, editors, or reviewers were aware of or involved in the misconduct, but this misconduct was significant enough to determine that the scientific integrity of the article cannot be guaranteed,” the notices state. 

An inventory of the forthcoming retractions Frontiers supplied us names one paper from Frontiers in Ecology in Evolution, six from Frontiers in Public Health, 29 from Frontiers in Energy Research, 33 from Frontiers in Environmental Science, and 53 from Frontiers in Psychology. Most had been revealed in 2022. 

The investigation started after a reader famous undisclosed conflicts of curiosity within the peer overview of a single paper, based on the assertion. PubPeer consumer “Desmococcus antarctica” has posted feedback on some of the papers to be retracted, identifying instances wherein an writer and reviewer had beforehand coauthored a paper collectively. 

After the primary tip, the analysis integrity staff started investigating all of the authors’ earlier submissions, publications, and coauthor networks, the writer’s assertion stated. 

“As the investigation proceeded, it became clear that a broad and sophisticated network of about 35 authors were potentially colluding over a very large number of journals and published papers, a fraction of which were published by Frontiers,” based on the assertion. 

Frontiers has a man-made intelligence overview system for submitted manuscripts, which now contains verification of the reviewers’ and dealing with editors’ battle of curiosity statements, the corporate stated. 

One of Desmococcus antarctica’s comments on PubPeer pertains to “Households’ Perception and Environmentally Friendly Technology Adoption: Implications for Energy Efficiency,” revealed in 2022 in Frontiers in Energy Research. The consumer identified that reviewer Muhammad Mohsin, an affiliate professor within the college of finance and economics at Jiangsu University in China, had beforehand coauthored a paper with one of many authors. 

Mohsin additionally served as an editor for the collection wherein the paper appeared. Many papers from the gathering, which Frontiers calls a “Research Topic,” have been retracted, and Mohsin is listed because the dealing with editor on a number of. He didn’t instantly reply to our request for remark. 

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