Among the increasingly complex issues surrounding research ethics and integrity, papermills pose a particular challenge for publishers, as well as being an affront to honest researchers and institutions alike. But what preventative measures can publishers and others put in place to put an end to this fraudulent activity?

Wiley has concluded 73 investigations after readers including Elisabeth Bik from Science Integrity Digest, @mortenoxe, @tigerBB8, @smutclyde, and Leonid Schneider from For Better Science alerted publishers to hundreds of suspected papermill articles. They and others, including Jennifer Byrne and Jana Christopher here, neatly described the characteristics of papermill articles (often including systematically manipulated and duplicated images like blots or FACS plots). Otto Kalliokoski and James Heathers went further and imagined a fictional papermill worker’s day-to-day here. This is useful for those of us designing ways to address and prevent the harm caused by papermills. We’re grateful for the work of these dedicated people: Thank you.

Bik and others claimed that hundreds of articles showed signs of possible papermills and asked that publishers, including Wiley, look in detail and, if indicated, publish corrections or retractions. We and other leading research publishers agreed and we soon realized that a consistent approach within and between publishers would be useful. So we’re grateful to the network of people from publishers and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) who shared and learned from each other about how to address potential papermill papers (here), and to COPE for insights and resources (for example, COPE’s guidance on identifying systematic manipulation of the publication process).

The sources of the possible papermill articles remain unknown. Beyond basic meta-data held in editorial office systems we have little data to help trace the papermills and take direct action, including potential legal action. So those behind the papermills remain hidden and presumably their work continues. The damage they cause is real - to the authors they persuade to use their counterfeiting services and to the readers who build upon sham results, to the institutions those authors belong to, and to the systems that support research to solve real problems within nations and globally. Journals and publishers are among the harmed. We’re also responsible for dealing with articles that were faked cleverly enough to be published, and for better prevention.

In early 2020, Wiley journal teams, supported by our Integrity in Publishing Group (IPG), began investigating the potential papermill articles we’d published. COPE guidelines and good practice demanded solid attempts to contact the authors of every implicated paper, and escalation wherever possible to universities, hospitals, institutions, and authorities with regulatory oversight.  We also reviewed the policies and processes that let these papers slip through. Our effort was significant and is ongoing.

To date Wiley teams have completed investigations into 73 articles identified by Bik and colleagues. We corrected seven articles. We retracted, or will soon retract, 55 articles. We found no reason to correct or retract in 11 articles. In some instances, authors came forward to us to request retraction which was helpful. While this is good progress, our teams have not yet completed their work and we anticipate more corrections and retractions.

Upholding the integrity of published research via correction or retraction, of course, is not as good as prevention. Since early 2020 we have recruited 11 new colleagues and trained them in the art of screening images for signs of duplication or manipulation. With these colleagues we have implemented new image screening services at 24 journals, screened close to 2000 papers before acceptance, and flagged potential problems for further evaluation by editors-in-chief (noting that problems may be from honest mistakes in data management, or from naïve as well as malicious manipulation). We are scaling up that service to all the journals we publish that would benefit from it. We are training colleagues how to use tools that identify patterns and signals in meta-data held within editorial office systems that might offer warning signs and exploring investments we can make to further improve those. We have partnered with leading researchers and technologists to invest in basic research into enabling technology, here. We have made significant changes to journals to accommodate new ways of working, including recruiting new editors-in-chief and team members. We have introduced new requirements for data sharing and archiving by authors, and held webinars and training sessions to spread the word to researchers.

I’m proud of and grateful for the work we’ve done and of the terrific teams who have done it. We’re ready for the work that’s still to come, and there’s more to do, for sure. I continue to be exasperated that an unknown number of fraudulent companies and people seem to be prepared to dupe research communities and publishers alike. They are distracting resources and efforts away from publishing the great work that the overwhelming majority of researchers create and need to share with the world. They are misusing funds that would presumably otherwise be spent on research. When we have real and immediate challenges like COVID-19, the climate crisis, continued inequality, and the rise of misinformation, we’re acutely aware of the need for trusted research. The harm caused by the companies and people who operate and use papermills is real and significant, and shouldn’t be understated.