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13 Dec 2021

Investigation of potentially falsified research

A wave of systematically falsified research manuscripts, commonly referred to as ‘paper mill’ papers, threatens to harm the integrity of today’s scientific literature and is of significant concern to all of us. ​ ​As soon as the issue was brought to our attention, we launched an extensive internal investigation. At Frontiers, we continue to follow our strict research integrity processes. If a suspicious article is identified, clarification from authors is sought and raw data investigated. If a satisfactory outcome is not achieved, a retraction will follow.​ ​This issue is a particularly complex one, affecting all leading publishers, and we remain in discussion with several of these to seek an effective and lasting outcome. The scale of the problem has been recognized by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), of which Frontiers is a member and to whom we are grateful for their guidance. ​ ​We are committed to upholding the highest levels of integrity and rigor. As such, we have workflows and preventative measures in place to address the issue.​ We maintain an internal working group dedicated to the issue as part of our existing Research Integrity and Auditing team. This group systematically reviews the situation, monitor for new developments, and share insights where possible.​ We are prototyping a new automated […]