Scientific Integrity vs. Malpractice & Misconduct

...worried about scientific integrity & ethics, malpractice & misconduct?
...concerned that scientific fraud through 'FFP' (falsification, fabrication, plagiarism) is only the tip of the iceberg?
...troubled about 'paper mills' with papers & authorships on sale, 'ghost' authorships, fake & predatory journals?
...alarmed by fake affiliations, 'honorary', 'guest', 'gift' & hyper-authorships, hyperprolific authors and citation cartels?
...affected by bad science through lying & faking, re-inventing & concealing, neglectful citing, bumptious writing & eye-washing, careless reading & sloppy searching, and unscientific thinking & working?
you are not alone!

...if you are interested, I am offering Seminars for Senior & Junior Researchers and a 3h Course on these issues:

Seminar: Erosion of Scientific Integrity Fueled by Quantitative Evaluation Metrics [target audience: senior researchers]

Seminar: Scientific Integrity Decline in Current Materials Research: Insights & Vistas Beneath the Tip of the Iceberg [target audience: junior researchers]

Young Researcher Course: Scientific Survival in Times of CV Polishing & Citation Gaming

Pedatory Conference Checker:

References & Links for further reading (...to be updated):

News

03.01.2025 ‘Precocious’ early-career scientists with high citation counts proliferate: read more...

27.12.2024 De profesión, 'cazafraudes' científicos: read more...

19.12.2024 German universities surrender to one of the world's infamous promotors of Salami & junk papers, papermills and predatory praxis: read more...
...while in the north, Finland Publication Forum takes radical measures, downgrading 271 MDPI and Frontiers journals to level "0" = trash: read more...

17.12.2024 a new trend in citation gaming: Shoddy commentaries—a quick and dirty route to higher impact numbers—are on the rise: read more...

19.11.2024 Clarivate removes another 2000 researchers from the list of "highly cited researcher" (HCR, with a total of ca. 'top-cited' 7000), see their analysis. After the former removals (2023: 1000, 2022: 500, 2021: 300), this makes a staggering total of 35% of removed HCR researchers! Self-evidently, Clarivate is frightened to death: selling numbers is their business model, and if people game the system unnoticed, their numbers are not worth a penny...

16.10.2024 An open letter regarding Scientific Reports , read more

02.08.2024 Should scientists be paid when AI chatbots use their work?, read more

01.08.2024 ‘Publish or Perish’ is now a card game — not just an academic’s life, read more

31.07.2024 How easy is it to fudge your scientific rank? Meet Larry, the world’s most cited cat, read more

30.07.2024 The mystery of the huge global summit in Barcelona that nobody knows anything about, read more

30.07.2024 J. Heathers about The Hindawi Files, read more

30.07.2024 Predatory conferences are on the rise. Here are five ways to tackle them, read more

30.07.2024 How to spot a predatory conference, and what science needs to do about them: a guide, read more

29.07.2024 How to improve assessments of publication integrity, read more

27.07.2024 Choosing a publisher? It’s not all about the impact factor, read more

24.07.2024 Equality in publishing: Are joint authors truly equal?, read more

11.06.2024 Scientific fraud: The case of the Spanish university rector should prompt change to ranking system, read more

11.06.2024 An epidemic of scientific fakery threatens to overwhelm publishers, read more

30.05.2024 Internal messages show how the new head of one of the world’s oldest universities organized a citation cartel, read more

29.05.2024 The alarming rise of fake science - Fraudulent papers are flooding scientific journals, read more

25.04.2024 Excessive use of words like ‘commendable’ and ‘meticulous’ suggests ChatGPT has been used in thousands of scientific studies, read more

16.04.2024: The Spanish CSIC signs the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research, in particular not to leave the definition of quality of science to private companies read more (in Spanish)

06.03.2024 Dentist José Luis Calvo Guirado joins the top 20 scientists whose studies have been retracted, read more

12.02.2024: according to a recent report in the journal 'Nature', China conducts first nationwide review of retractions and research misconduct; Nature analysis reveals that since 2021 there have been more than 17,000 retractions with Chinese co-authors.

31.01.2024: according to a recent report in the journal 'Science', the recent removal of 1000 researchers from Clarivate's HCR list concerns the entire field of mathematics, due to the formation of a citation cartel, mainly located in China and Saudi Arabia ( read more), pushing irrelevant researchers with irrelevant papers into the HCR list.
Apparently, Clarivate is mortally terrified to loose it's business model, as 'citation gaming' becomes a popular 'sport' among certain researchers, fulfilling Goodhart's law.
Citation Cartels are found also in other fields and countries, see e.g. Clarivate Crackdown on Biochar Citation Cartel'' ...for our own research field, take a look also at these profiles (example-1, example-2), to conceive a qualified opinion.

12.12.2023 More than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023 — a new record, R. Van Noorden, Nature, 2023, 624, 479-481, read more ...now reaching a broader public: ‘The situation has become appalling’: fake scientific papers push research credibility to crisis point (R. McKie,The Guardian), read more

24.11.2023 Clarivate removes +1000 researchers from the list of "highly cited researcher", see their analysis, the article in El País in English and Spanish, and see also A turning point for Saudi Arabian affiliations

News Archive

Scientific Production & Hyperprolific Authorship:
04/2024: Elisabeth Bik, expert in scientific integrity: ‘We need to slow down scientific publishing’ read more
01/2024: Publishing and the Dissemination of Science read more
...articles in El País:
21.11.2023: Scientists paid large publishers over $1 billion in four years to have their studies published with open access read more
Los científicos pagaron unos 1.000 millones de euros en cuatro años a las grandes editoriales para publicar sus estudios en abierto read more
31.10.2023: Public funds being swallowed up by scientific journals with dubious articles read more
La burbuja de las revistas científicas se traga millones de euros de dinero público read more
...the El País article is based on the study by M. A. Hanson et al: The Strain on Scientific Publishing
05.10.2023: Spanish university administrator and colleagues linked to ‘factory’ producing fraudulent scientific studies read more
Una megafábrica de estudios científicos falsos salpica a un vicerrector español y a tres colaboradores read more
03.06.2023: A researcher who publishes a study every two days reveals the darker side of science read more
Un científico que publica un estudio cada dos días muestra el lado más oscuro de la ciencia read more
20.04.2023: Se nos pudre la ciencia read more
19.04.2023: Joan Subirats: “Una persona que hace un artículo cada tres días es algo complicado de entender” read more

Fake Affiliations:
03.11.2023 The Spanish science ministry takes action, establishing a ethics committee. In it's first report it defines rules on scientists' affiliations read more ...articles in El País (in Spanish):
08.11.2023: Spanish national research council investigates five scientists for manipulating university rankings read more
El CSIC abre expediente disciplinario a cinco científicos implicados en la trama saudí para amañar el ‘ranking’ de universidades” read more
04.05.2023: Saudi scientist tells colleagues, ‘Stop this academic fraud’ read more
Un científico saudí que rechazó ser coautor fantasma en estudios españoles: “Debemos detener esta bufonada académica” read more
03.05.2023: Ética científica: ¿Cuántos escándalos tendrán que producirse para que tomemos medidas? read more
20.04.2023: Un catedrático capta con su empresa tapadera a científicos españoles para que mientan y digan que trabajan en una universidad saudí read more
19.04.2023: One of the most internationally cited scientists, Ai Koyanagi, forced to renounce her controversial contract with a Saudi university read more
Una de las científicas más citadas del mundo, Ai Koyanagi, obligada a renunciar a su polémico contrato con una universidad saudí read more
18.04.2023: Saudi Arabia pays Spanish scientists to pump up global university rankings read more
Arabia Saudí paga a científicos españoles para hacer trampas en el ‘ranking’ de las mejores universidades del mundo read more
31.03.2023: One of the world’s most cited scientists, Rafael Luque, suspended without pay for 13 years read more
Suspendido de empleo y sueldo por 13 años uno de los científicos más citados del mundo, el español Rafael Luque read more
...if you want to see the whole updated international paylist of the "King Saud University", take a brave look at their 2023 "International Conference and Exhibition for Science" ...here all the resourceful 'scientrepeneurs' met together, including well-known faces who affiliated themselves with that 'extraordinary' Saudi institution while receiving their ordinary salaries from naive Spanish taxpayers... highlight of the conference was a future Nobel prize winner, to speak to this illustrious community of top Saudi scientists ...or to sum it up with Roman Emperor Vespasian: pecunia non olet ...in El Salto (in Spanish):
15.07.2019: Papers y más papers: las sombras en la industria de las publicaciones científicas read more

Publishing:
10.11.2020 The Journal of Nanoparticle Research victim of an organized rogue editor network!, N. Pinna, G. Clavel, M. C. Roco, J. Nanopart. Res. 2020, 22, 376

Citation Gaming:
05/2024: M. T. Rahman, Stop ‘scienocide’ with soulful scientific ventures read more
03/2024: A. Bahamonde, P. Larrañaga, R. López de Mántaras, Contra la perversión del sistema de evaluación de la ciencia read more
03/2024: D. Docampo, The Dark World of ‘Citation Cartels’read more
05/2022: How citation cartels give ‘strategic scholars’ an advantage read more
07/2016: Watch out for cheats in citation game read more
06/2016: What do we know about journal citation cartels? read more
08/2013: Brazilian citation scheme outed read more

Predatory Conferences:
09/2023:The alarming rise of predatory conferences read more

Paper Mills:
12/2023 Video:La granja de los científicos bamba: docentes pagan por coautorías de estudios en el extranjero watch
07/2023:The Vickers Curse: secret revealed! read more

Fraud:

Open Access & Open Publishing:
01.10.2024: Peer review by committee? New journal rethinks old model read more
26.09.2024: The benefits of diamond are not crystal clear read more
17.09.2024: Why Privatizing Peer Review is the Future: Lessons from Institutional Review Boards read more

Blogs on Scientific Integrity

Retractionwatch

Science Integrity Digest

The Scholarly Kitchen

Publishing with Integrity

Research Integrity Archives

For Better Science

The Embassy of Good Science

Research Misconduct News

Science-Education-Research

Essays & Perspectives on Scientific Integrity

Should We Publish Fewer Papers?, S. Jin, 08/2024, read more

The Academic Culture of Fraud , B. Landau-Taylor, 02/2024, read more

Peer review is essential for science. Unfortunately, it’s broken., P. Sutter, 12.07.2024, read more

Designer Science – Why big brand journals harm research, D. Pattinson, G. Currie, 09.07.2024, read more

More is not better: the developing crisis of scientific publishing, G. Boulton, M. Koley, 02.07.2024, read more

How shameful should retraction be?, R. Richardson, 18.06.2024, read more

The case for criminalizing scientific misconduct, 17.06.2024, read more

Plagiarism, Paper Mills, and Profit: These Scientists Are Fighting the Epidemic of Fraudulent Research, S. Rahman, Analyst News read more

Paper Trail - In the latest twist of the publishing arms race, firms churning out fake papers have taken to bribing journal editors, F. Joelving, Science 2024, 383, 253

Citation Cartels in Medical and Dental Journals, S. J. A. Zaidi, M.Taqi, 06/2023, J Coll Physicians Surg Pak 2023, 33, 700

The Strain on Scientific Publishing, M. A. Hanson et al, 2023, arXiv.2309.15884

Who should take responsibility for integrity in research?, G. Gaskell et al, 2023, read more

A Role for Funders in Fostering China’s Research Integrity, L. Tang, Science 2022, 375, 979

To Err is Human; To Reproduce Takes Time, S. L. Scott et al, ACS Catal. 2022, 12, 6, 3644

Re-imagining Priorities for Chemistry: A Central Science for “Freedom from Fear and Want”, S. A. Matlin, A. Krief, H. Hopf, G. Mehta, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2021, 60, 25610

Realigning science, society and policy in uncertain times, G. Mehta, H. Hopf, A. Krief, S. A. Matlin, R. Soc. Open Sci. 2020, 7, 200554.

Blocking the Hype-Hypocrisy-Falsification-Fakery Pathway is Needed to Safeguard Science, H. Hopf, S. A. Matlin, G. Mehta, A. Krief, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2020, 59, 2150

Research integrity: nine ways to move from talk to walk, N. Mejlgaard et al, Nature 2020, 586, 358

Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication, M. K. McNutt et al, PNAS 2018, 115, 2557

May university rankings help uncover problematic or fraudulent research?, P. Wauters, 2013 read more

They did a bad bad thing, Editorial Nat. Chem. 2011, 3, 337

Scientific Self-Control

arguments for a Hippocratic Oath for Scientists, see the Wikipedia page

Forensic Scientometrics (FoSci) Paris Declaration

Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information

EUChemS: Working Party on 'Ethics in Chemistry'

Scientific Misconduct and the Myth of Self-Correction in Science, W. Stroebe, T. Postmes, R. Spears, Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 2012, 7, 670

DORA: Initiative, based on the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (2013), read [addresses Individuals & Organizations]

COARA: Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment [addresses organizations]

Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics (2015)

Hong Kong Principles for Assessing Researchers: Fostering Research Integrity (2020)

The International Science Council (ISC)

How Science Works (U. Berkeley)

PubPeer

Guidelines of Good Scientific Practice

German Science Foundation [DFG]: Code of Conduct “Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice” read more

The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (Revised Edition), ALLEA 2023, Berlin

CSIC (Spain): Scientific Integrity and Good Practises read more

European Charter for Researchers read more

COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics read more

Scientific Integrity Principles and Best Practices: Recommendations from a Scientific Integrity Consortium, A Kretser et al, Sci. Eng. Ethics 2019, 25, 327

Science & Society, Pseudoscience, Fake News

Populism, Research Integrity, and Trust. How Science-Related Populist Beliefs Shape the Relationship Between Ethical Conduct and Trust in Scientists , A F. Zillich et al, Int. J. Public Opinion Research, Volume 36, Issue 3, 2024, edae038

I. de Melo-Martín, K. Intemann, The Fight Against Doubt: How to Bridge the Gap Between Scientists and the Public, Oxford Academic, 2018

How the Scientific Method Invalidates “Fake News”, M. Carlton, L. Leininger, in: Teaching About Fake News: Lessons Plans for Different Disciplines and Audiences, (Ed.: C. Benjes-Small, C. Wittig, M. K. Oberlies). ACRL 2021. read more

Wiki Pseudociencias

Die Skeptiker (in German)

Teaching Science Ethics

M. Thomsen, Ethics Inside and Outside the Physics Lab; in: R. Iphofen (Ed.) Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity, p. 937-954, Springer 2020

Webinar Good Chemistry - Do Chemists Need Ethics? (J. Mehlich)

The Ethical and Social Dimensions of Chemistry: Reflections, Considerations, and Clarifications, J. Mehlich, F. Moser, B. Van Tiggelen, L. Campanella, H. Hopf, Chem. Eur. J. 2017, 23, 1210

Ethics of Chemistry - From Poison Gas to Climate Engineering, J. Schummer and T. Børsen (Eds), World Scientific, 2021

Ethics in Science - Ethical Misconduct in Scientific Research, J. D'Angelo, CRC Press, 2018

Scientific norms and ethical misconduct: research towards the design of a course in scientific ethics, A. M. Verdan, J. T. Ingallinera, G. Bhattacharyya, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2010, 11, 118

Teaching Scientific Ethics Using the Example of Hendrik Schön, B. J. Feldman, US-China Education Review A 2012, 4, 418

Books on the Matter

J. Mehlich, Good Chemistry: Methodological, Ethical, and Social Dimensions, RSC Publishing, 2021

Science on Science

Falsification & Fabrication

Research Misconduct—Definitions, Manifestations and Extent (Review), L. Bornmann, Publications 2013, 1, 87

The Demographics of Deception: What Motivates Authors Who Engage in Misconduct?, R. Grant Steen, Publications 2014, 2, 44

How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data, D. Fanelli, Plos One 2009, 4, e5738

Retractions

The limitations of retraction notices and the heroic acts of authors who correct the scholarly record: An analysis of retractions of papers published from 1975 to 2019, Q.-H. Vuong, Learned Publishing 2020, 33, 119

Correcting the Scientific Record: Retraction Practices in Chemistry and Materials Science, F.-X. Coudert, Chem. Mater. 2019, 31, 10, 3593

Analysis of Retracted Manuscripts in Chemistry: Errors vs Misconduct, Y. Sevryugina, R. Jimenez, ACS Omega 2023, 8, 31568

Authorship

Intellectual contributions meriting authorship: Survey results from the top cited authors across all science categories, G. S. Patience, F. Galli, P. A. Patience, D. C. Boffito, PLoS ONE 2019, 14, e019811

Scientific Production

The strain on scientific publishing, M. A. Hanson, P. Gómez Barreiro, P. Crosetto, D. Brockington, read more

Research groups: How big should they be?, I. Cook, S. Grange, A. Eyre-Walker, PeerJ 2015, 3, e989

Citations

What a database of more than a thousand dismissive literature reviews can tell us, read more

Evolution of number of citations per article in Materials Science: possible causes and effect on the impact factor of journals, A. M. Ariza-Guerrero, J. S. Blázquez, Scientometrics 2023, 128, 6589

Citation Ethics: An Exploratory Survey of Norms and Behaviors, S. V. Bruton, A. L. Macchione, M. Brown, M. Hosseini, J. Acad. Ethics 2024

Growth in the number of references in engineering journal papers during the 1972–2013 period, I. Ucar, F. López-Fernandino, P. Rodriguez-Ulibarri, L. Sesma-Sanchez, V. Urrea-Micó, J. Sevilla, Scientometrics 2014, 98, 1855

Ten simple rules for responsible referencing, B. Penders, PLoS Comput Biol 2018, 14, e1006036

Literary runaway: Increasingly more references cited per academic research article from 1980 to 2019, C. Dai, Q. Chen, T. Wan, F. Liu, Y. Gong, Q. Wang, PLoS ONE 16(8): e0255849

Citation Gaming: Cartels, Mills, Fake

From citation metrics to citation ethics: Critical examination of a highly-cited 2017 moth pheromone paper, J. A. Teixeira da Silva, N. J. Vickers, S. Nazarovets, Scientometrics 2024

Preserving Academic Integrity: Combating the Proliferation of Paper Mills in Scholarly Publishing, P. S. Deo, P. Hangsin, J. Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries 2024

What Do Citations Count? The Rhetoric-First Model, Se. E. Cozzens, Scientometrics 1989, 15, 437

Toward the Discovery of Citation Cartels in Citation Networks, I. Fister Jr., I. Fister, M. Perc, Front. Phys. 2016, 4, 49

Detecting anomalous citation groups in journal networks, S. Kojaku, G. Livan, N. Masuda, Sci. Reports 2021, 11, 14524

Google Scholar is manipulatable H. Ibrahim, F. Liu, Y. Zaki, T. Rahwan, arxiv.org:2402.04607

Inaccurate citation, citation cartels, fake citations, citation of retracted papers: why research integrity needs citation integrity, J. Schneider, H. Kilicoglu, U. Illinois, read more

Revealed: The inner workings of a paper mill read more

Publishing Metrics

Some thoughts on transparency of the data and analysis behind the Highly Cited Researchers list, A.-M. Klein, N. Kranke, Scientometrics 2023, 128, 6773

Over-optimization of academic publishing metrics: observing Goodhart’s Law in action, M. Fire, C. Guestrin, GigaScience 2019, 8, 1

The Scientometric Bubble Considered Harmful, M. Fire, C. Guestrin, Eng Ethics 2016, 22, 227

Editorial Misconduct

Editorial Misconduct—Definition, Cases, and Causes (Review), M. Shelomi, Publications 2014, 2, 51

Reviewer Misconduct

The review mills, not just (self-)plagiarism in review reports, but a step further, M. Ángeles Oviedo-García, Scientometrics 2024

Emerging plagiarism in peer-review evaluation reports: a tip of the iceberg?, M. Piniewski, I. Jaric, D. Koutsoyiannis, Z. W. Kundzewicz, Scientometrics 2024

Publication Business on Public Costs

Beyond the journal: The future of scientific publishing, B. Johnson, 28.06.2024, read more

The money behind academic publishing, read more

Who are the 100 largest scientific publishers by journal count? A webscraping approach, A. Nishikawa-Pacher, J. Documentation 2022, 78, 450

An open dataset of article processing charges from six large scholarly publishers (2019-2023), L.-A. Butler, M. Hare, N. Schönfelder, E. Schares, J. P. Alperin, S. Haustein, read more

Manipulation of Relevance

HARKing: Hypothesizing After the Results are Known N. L. Kerr, Personality and Social Psychology Review 1998, 2, 196

Big little lies: a compendium and simulation of p-hacking strategies A. M. Stefan, F. Schönbrodt, R. Soc. Open Sci.10220346

Research Projects on Scientific Misconduct

DFG Project: Summa cum fraude, and project description

ERC Project: NanoBubbles, dedicated on "how, when and why science fails to correct itself"

Glossary of Scientific Misconduct
...to come