A new scandal of fraudulently published scientific papers is hitting academia. It centres on the broadly read Frontiers journals, a series that has a huge range across life sciences, social sciences, engineering, and so on.
There are currently 122 scientific papers that are being retracted, most in psychology and environmental sciences. They were discovered after the publisher learned – thanks to an anonymous post online – of an undisclosed conflict of interest by the peer reviewer of a paper submitted to be published in the journal.
Investigating further articles submitted by the author and reviewer in question, Frontiers found a network of at least 35 individuals apparently colluding in submitting scientific papers and positively reviewing each other’s work without disclosure of collaboration.
The number of immediate retractions is low compared to the massive scope of academic publishing. However, Frontiers and Retraction Watch have suggested there may be upward of 4,000 published scientific papers in line to be retracted due to the network’s misconduct.
The reviewer who sparked the scandal is Muhammad Mohsin. Mohsin is an associate professor in the school of finance and economics at Jiangsu University in China, and had previously co-authored an article with the author of an article he then peer reviewed.
Mohsin reviewed a paper by Munir Ahmad, a professor at the School of Economics of Zhejiang University, without disclosing that they had previously published research together.
The co-authors have also published with Yu Hao and Muhammed Irfan (both of Beijing Institute of Technology), authors who subsequently published a further paper reviewed by Mohsin. The group’s other recent co-authors include researchers from Pakistan, Malaysia, China and Russia.
In recent years, hundreds of papers on the neurophysiology of Alzheimer’s have been retracted, after doctored MRI images were published. The authors in question had connections to California and links to pharmaceutical companies as consultants, and the papers helped make the case for multimillion-dollar drugs.
The impersonal and massive scale of academic publishing – and its centrality to academics’ professional capital – continues to drive misconduct. AI tools, however, are now facilitating investigation of these abuses.
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