Keeping Them Honest: Fighting Fraud in Academic Publishing

Main Text

As noted recently,¹ 2020 was a very good year for the Molecular Therapy (MT) family of journals, as our publishing footprint continues to grow and the quality of research we publish, at least as far as measured by impact factor, follows suit. A large part of the growth of the journal family has occurred in Asia, in China in particular, and that trend appears likely to continue. As also noted previously,² the challenge for the journal group and its editors is to develop a better understanding of the gene and cell communities in China as well as the structure and nature of the Chinese scientific and research community overall. It is remarkable how quickly science in China has advanced in this last decade, and many of the top papers our journals publish originate from Chinese institutes and laboratories. China’s medical sector has become highly competitive as the nation has striven to become the world leader in scientific research. In fact, in 2018, China overtook the US, as measured by volume, in scientific publications. China provides financial incentives to authors of papers appearing in high impact journals in the form of direct payments and somewhat less generous payments for publications in lower tier titles. Publications are also crucial to career advancement, much as they are in other jurisdictions around the world, but in China, the competition is particularly fierce. It is against this backdrop that an unfortunate byproduct of the incentive system has been the creation of so-called “paper mills” that fabricate essentially fake scientific reports for a fee.³ The increasing volume of this “junk science” is wreaking havoc on the credibility of the research emanating out of China and increasingly casting doubt upon legitimate science from the region.

The MT family has not gone unaffected by this growing problem, and measures must be taken to identify and expunge the offending authors and institutes. Over the past several weeks, the editorial teams of the MT family of journals have taken a close look at submissions from China and have begun to identify several characteristics common to papers emanating from the China paper mills. Using this information, we have modified our policies and procedures with a view to flagging potentially forged papers at submission stage. Authors are now required to provide greater substantiation of their identity, funding, and position. This will include a requirement for authors to provide an ORCID identification number, a direct phone line, and an institutional email address. At MT itself, corresponding authors are being thoroughly vetted through investigation of publishing history and the authors’ institutional online presence. We are also continuing to recruit Associate Editors from China, who are better able to vet submissions from legitimate institutes and universities. The new requirements include:

• •a personalized cover letter, preferably on institutional letterhead
• •an ORCID number for the corresponding author
• •full contact information (including position, institution, department, full address, and phone number), including an institutional email address
• •funding information (funder name, grant number, and grant recipient)
• •co-author confirmation of authorship; all authors will now be asked to confirm their authorship on a paper and verify their role in the study
• •disclosure of submission to a pre-print server
• •disclosure of dual submission or publication
• •disclosure of any commercial or academic conflicts of interest.

Throughout the last year, all submission items have been routinely evaluated for plagiarism using iThenticate, and we are currently in discussion with our publishing partner, Cell Press, for an automated image scanning solution to identify image manipulation or forgery, again at the submission stage. The new measures should go a long way in identifying problem papers, but key to the efficacy of these measures is to levy important penalties upon authors and institutes when fraud is detected. The Chinese authorities are aware of the problems and have taken measures to combat them, although it is unclear how widely these measures are being enforced.³ Clearly, the ultimate responsibility for policing science ethics in China rests with governmental and institutional authorities, but in the interim, it is incumbent upon our editorial team to do what we can to disincentivize these practices. Certainly, any author determined to have engaged in fraud, either deliberate or otherwise, will not be able to submit to the journal family in the future. The author’s institute will also be contacted and will be expected to follow up to avoid repetition of these practices, failing which, submissions from the institutes in question will be banned altogether. Repeated instances of fraud emanating from any one institute may also result in an institutional submission ban. Without a doubt, excellent biomedical research of the highest international standards and reputation is being performed by many of our colleagues in China, and our journals have published and will continue to publish many outstanding papers from Chinese authors and institutions. It is therefore as much in the interest of the research community in China as it is for the reputation of academic publishing to eliminate the practice of manufacturing fraudulent manuscripts.