It has been revealed that academic fraud has spread extensively in the scientific community. Research findings indicate that a systematic and organized pattern of fraud is taking root beyond mere individual misconduct.
Researchers from Northwestern University in the United States and the University of Sydney in Australia announced on the 5th in the international journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)" that they analyzed hundreds of thousands of scientific papers and uncovered a complex network of fraud that has infiltrated the scientific publishing ecosystem through specific case studies.
The paper lists Professor Luís Amaral from Northwestern University's College of Engineering, Professor Thomas Stoeger from Northwestern University's School of Medicine, and Professor Jennifer Byrne from the University of Sydney's School of Medical Sciences as joint corresponding authors.
◇Produced in a paper mill with collusive reviews
The researchers' analysis revealed that organized criminal activities entangled with paper mills and private intermediaries, alongside manipulations of peer reviews, have deeply entrenched themselves within the scientific community.
Paper mills produce papers in bulk and sell them to researchers who are under pressure for research results. Naturally, papers churned out by paper mills were of poor quality, sometimes including data manipulation, image plagiarism, or even content that was practically impossible.
There were even transactions where one could buy desired author positions by paying money. To be listed as the first author, one had to pay thousands of dollars, and the frequency of citations for other papers was also traded for money.
The Northwestern University researchers noted, "The methods of fraud are becoming increasingly sophisticated," adding, "Brokers and manipulation strategies that intermediate all processes—ranging from paper writing to author recruitment and connections to fake journals—are primarily being utilized."
For example, after a nursing-specific journal in the UK ceased publication and its website domain expired, an organization acquired the site and published thousands of irrelevant papers while also registering them in academic databases. It can now be seen that paper fraud has evolved from mere individual misconduct to an ecosystem for profit.
The researchers from Northwestern University reported that the number of papers suspected to be produced by paper mills is doubling every 1.5 years, outpacing the rate of retractions, which is doubling every 3.3 years.
Professor Luís Amaral stated, "Strengthening the editing and review systems, developing fraud detection technologies, identifying the entities behind fraud networks, and improving the incentive structures that demand publication performance are urgent." He noted, "It is crucial to address these issues before artificial intelligence (AI) has a greater impact on papers."
◇Editors passing their own papers
On that day, the Nature news team exclusively reported that the Northwestern University researchers had disclosed specific instances of paper fraud. Nature announced that one-third of the 702 papers retracted for issues in the online open-access journal "PLOS ONE" were associated with just 45 journal editors.
Editors are responsible for assigning appropriate reviewers to the papers submitted to journals and for overseeing the collection of selected papers for journal publication. According to Nature, some editors passed papers that they knew had issues. In other words, it was akin to entrusting a cat with the fish.
Nature reported that among those problematic editors, 25 authored papers that were also retracted. Moreover, some editors exchanged suspicious papers among themselves and passed them without review. They engaged in collusive reviews. Some were found to have ties to paper mills that produce and sell fake papers.
According to Nature, PLOS ONE's own investigation also revealed that editors acted unfairly by processing papers solely from certain authors or editing papers they co-authored. For instance, one editor handled 79 papers, of which 52 were retracted due to conflicts of interest between the authors and reviewers.
Renee Hoch, the ethics officer at PLOS ONE, told Nature, "We have been aware of this issue for a long time, and the individuals involved have been immediately removed from their editorial positions," adding, "This phenomenon is not just a problem for specific journals but represents a structural issue occurring across the entire academic publishing industry."
References
PNAS (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2420092122
Nature (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-02446-5