In the past decade, there have been more than 39,000 retractions, and the annual number of retractions is growing by around 23% each year.
Nearly half the retractions were due to issues related to the authenticity of the data. For example, in August the United States Office of Research Integrity found that Richard Eckert, a senior biochemist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, faked data in 13 published papers. Four of these papers have been corrected, one has been retracted and the remainder are still awaiting action.
Plagiarism was the second most common reason research papers were retracted, accounting for 16% of retractions. . . .
However, the use of fake peer reviewers has increased tenfold over the past decade. There has also been an eightfold rise in publications linked to so-called “paper mills”, which are businesses that provide fake papers for a fee.
In 2022, up to 2% of all publications were from paper mills.
The prevailing reward system in academia often prioritises publication quantity over quality. When promotions, funding, and recognition are tied to the number of papers published, scientists may feel pressured to cut corners, rush experiments, or even fabricate data to meet these metrics.
Initiatives such as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment are pushing for change. This initiative advocates for evaluating research based on its quality and societal impact rather than journal-based metrics such as impact factors or citation counts.
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