Paper mills: Researchers uncover scientific fraud networks that threaten research integrity at industrial scale
A comprehensive investigation reveals sophisticated networks of editors, authors, and brokers systematically scamming the scientific publishing system at unprecedented scale. The research exposes coordinated fraud operations that have infiltrated major journals and publishers, with fraudulent publications growing exponentially faster than legitimate science.
The scientific enterprise faces an unprecedented crisis as large, resilient networks systematically produce fraudulent research at industrial scale, according to groundbreaking research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on 4 August 2025.
The comprehensive investigation, led by researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Sydney, exposes sophisticated fraud operations that have infiltrated major scientific journals and publishers worldwide. Their analysis reveals coordinated networks of editors, authors, and commercial brokers working together to bypass traditional peer-review standards and publish fabricated research.
“The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly,” the authors note in their paper. The research demonstrates that fraudulent publications are doubling every 1.5 years – ten times faster than legitimate scientific literature.
Networks of compromised editors facilitate systematic fraud
The investigation identified alarming patterns in editorial handling at major journals. At PLOS ONE, which has published 276,956 articles since 2006, researchers flagged 45 editors who accepted retracted or problematic articles at rates far exceeding statistical expectations.
“These individuals edited 1.3% of all articles published in PLOS ONE by 2024 but 30.2% of retracted articles,” the authors report. More concerning still, “More than half of these editors (25 of 45) also authored articles retracted by PLOS ONE.”
The study revealed densely connected groups of individuals serving as editors who predominantly sent submissions to one another rather than distributing them randomly. Many articles accepted by these editor networks were later retracted with nearly identical notices citing concerns about “authorship, competing interests, and peer review.”
Similar patterns emerged across multiple Hindawi journals, where researchers identified 53 editors who anomalously frequently accepted eventually retracted articles, demonstrating the widespread nature of these coordinated fraud networks.
Paper mills exploit journal targeting and “hopping” strategies
The research exposed sophisticated commercial operations, exemplified by the Academic Research and Development Association (ARDA), which maintains an evolving portfolio of targeted journals where it guarantees publication. Since January 2018, ARDA has expanded from 14 journals to 86 journals by March 2024, advertising involvement in “4,565+ publications.”
Crucially, the investigators discovered that ARDA engages in “journal hopping” –systematically abandoning journals after they become deindexed by major databases and replacing them with new targets. “The probability that a journal listed by ARDA is deindexed far exceeds the baseline rate – 13 out of 39 (33.3%) Scopus-indexed journals listed by ARDA in 2020 were later deindexed, versus 147 out of 27,197 (0.5%) Scopus-indexed journals actively publishing in 2020.”
This adaptive behaviour enables fraud operations to evade existing quality control mechanisms and continue operating despite regulatory interventions.
Industrial-scale production evidenced by image duplication networks
The study constructed networks of 2,213 articles connected through 4,188 instances of image duplication – a hallmark of fraudulent research. Using advanced statistical modelling, researchers identified distinct modules within these networks, suggesting coordinated production by organised entities.
“Articles within each module would tend to appear in the same journals around the same time,” the authors explain, consistent with paper mills producing articles in batches using fixed banks of fabricated images. Despite clear evidence of fabrication, only 34.1% of these articles have been retracted.
The analysis revealed extreme concentration in publication timing and publishers within modules, rejecting null hypotheses of random distribution. “For nearly all modules, the publication dates of the articles sharing images are extremely concentrated in time” and “the journals publishing articles that share images are extremely concentrated by publisher.”
Differential targeting across scientific subfields
The investigation revealed that fraud entities strategically target specific research areas. Examining closely related subfields within RNA biology, researchers found dramatic variations in retraction rates despite similar rates of legitimate corrections (errata).
While CRISPR-Cas9 research showed retraction rates of only 0.1% – consistent with good-faith science – studies on long noncoding RNAs and microRNAs in cancer research displayed retraction rates peaking around 4%. “These rates are unlikely to be compatible with good-faith mistakes and point toward concerted attempts at scientific fraud,” the authors conclude.
Current safeguards inadequate against exponential growth
The research reveals that existing integrity measures are insufficient to address the scale of fraudulent activity. While Web of Science and Scopus deindex approximately 100 journals annually for quality concerns, “it is ten-fold smaller than the number of journals that publish paper mill products.”
The authors document exponential growth across all fraud indicators: “The number of retracted articles and PubPeer-commented articles has been doubling every 3.3 y and every 3.6 y, respectively, while the total number of publications has been doubling every 15.0 y.”
Most alarmingly, suspected paper mill products now outnumber annually retracted articles and are projected to soon exceed PubPeer-commented articles, indicating that detection and correction mechanisms are being overwhelmed.
Urgent systemic reforms needed
The findings paint a dire picture of scientific integrity under systematic assault. “Changing the culture and incentives of science is a slow process. Many of the stakeholders whose engagement is necessary for change are those benefiting from the status quo. However, in our view, the severity of the situation requires urgent action,” the authors warn.
They call for fundamental reforms separating detection, investigation, and sanctioning functions while removing conflicts of interest from the oversight process. “Detection at the scale the problem demands cannot be left to a small number of isolated volunteers. It needs resources, both human and technological, commensurate with the threat.”
The research highlights risks to emerging technologies, noting that “machine scientists” and large language models cannot yet distinguish quality science from fraudulent publications – a problem that will only worsen as fraudulent literature proliferates.
This investigation represents the most comprehensive analysis to date of systematic scientific fraud, revealing an enterprise that threatens the fundamental integrity of the global research system. The authors’ findings demand immediate attention from publishers, institutions, and policymakers to preserve public trust in scientific knowledge.
Reference
Richardson, R. A. K., Hong, S. S., Byrne, J. A., Stoeger, T., & Amaral, L. A. N. (2025). The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(32), e2420092122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2420092122
