Mass production of fake science publishing: How big is the problem and why?

Our trust in the integrity of academic publishing is the foundation of progress in biomedical science and technology. But there is now concern about an unprecedented scale of misconduct: industry-style, semi-automatic production of fake scientific publications by “paper mills”, professional agencies that fake scientific data, figures, tables, and AI-written manuscripts. While the number of fake publications was considered to be small, it now reaches concerning levels in biomedicine of 100,000+ publications annually, supporting a billion € industry. Researchers, editors, publishers and governmental funding bodies are called to action to stop this systematic attack on the permanent scientific record.

Author and article information

Conference

Publisher: ScienceOpen

Publication date (Electronic, pub): 9 October 2023

Affiliations

[1 ] Institute of Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty, Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany ;

[2 ] Center for Brain and Behavioral Sciences (CBBS), Magdeburg, Germany;

Author information

Bernhard Sabel https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4472-5543

Article

DOI: 10.14293/GOF.23.15

SO-VID: ef167156-0eb8-4821-875c-dbee637bfdc3

License:

Published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International ( CC BY 4.0). Users are allowed to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially), as long as the authors and the publisher are explicitly identified and properly acknowledged as the original source.

Conference name: Genetoberfest 2023

Conference date: 16-18 October 2023

History

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ScienceOpen