The Black Market for Fake Science Is Growing Faster Than Legitimate Research, Study Warns

A caller study by researchers astatine Northwestern University has group disconnected siren bells astir nan early of world research, informing that nan publication of fraudulent subject is increasing astatine a faster complaint than that of morganatic research.

Over nan past 4 centuries, an implicit statement has been established betwixt scientists and states: successful speech for producing knowledge useful for economical and societal development, governments and different benefactors connection researchers unchangeable careers, bully salaries, and nationalist recognition. This model, akin to that of a commercialized enterprise, has proven to beryllium businesslike and has been replicated successful astir regions of nan world.

However, caller investigation published successful nan diary Proceedings of nan National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reveals that, successful caller years, this system—composed of researchers, world institutions, authorities agencies, backstage companies, and dissemination platforms—shows signs of breaking down.

The authors reason that owed to nan ample standard and specialization of modern science, nan publication of each character is nary longer evaluated by nan intrinsic merit of their work, but by quantitative indicators, specified arsenic nan number of investigation papers published, really often articles are cited by different research, assemblage rankings, aliases by awards and different recognitions obtained.

“These indicators person quickly go targets for measuring organization and individual impact, which has generated unbridled title and increasing inequality successful nan distribution of resources, incentives, and rewards,” nan authors warn.

This successful move has led to nan proliferation of fraud successful immoderate quarters of nan technological community, arsenic researchers look for speedy ways to get indicators of success. “The usage of numerical metrics to measure projects and professionals … encourages nan hunt for shortcuts,” says Pere Puigdomènech, president of nan Committee for Research Integrity successful Catalonia (CIR-CAT) successful Spain. The types of fraud detected scope from nan creation of fictitious research, to plagiarism, to nan buying and trading of authorship and citations successful papers.

A Mafia That Threatens Scientific Integrity

Northwestern’s investigation shows that cases of fraud are often not isolated incidents, but alternatively nan consequence of analyzable networks that run systematically to undermine nan integrity of science.

The investigation squad down this paper, led by Luis A. N. Amaral, professor of Engineering Science and Applied Mathematics astatine Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, reached this conclusion aft analyzing ample volumes of information connected retracted publications, editorial records, and image duplication.

Sources included awesome aggregators of technological literature—such arsenic Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed/MEDLINE, and OpenAlex—as good arsenic lists of journals removed from these databases for violating value aliases ethical standards. In addition, information connected retracted articles flagged by nan investigative website Retraction Watch, comments connected nan science-paper reappraisal tract PubPeer, and editorial metadata (editor names and submission and acceptance dates) were besides collected and analyzed.

This study highlighted nan activity of “papermills”—unscrupulous organizations that mass-produce low-quality manuscripts and waste these, sometimes done intermediaries, to academics looking to people worldly quickly. These papers often incorporate falsified data, manipulated aliases copyright-infringed images, plagiarized content, and moreover absurd aliases physically intolerable claims. “These networks are fundamentally criminal organizations, acting together to clone nan process of science,” Amaral said successful a statement published by Northwestern University.