The DOI matches its Crossref record; 16 of the 16 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
‘Stamp out paper mills’ — science sleuths on how to fight fake research
Open accessAbstract
A group of scientists who are experts at spotting fraudulent research outline five essential steps to combat industrialized scientific misconduct. A group of scientists who are experts at spotting fraudulent research outline five essential steps to combat industrialized scientific misconduct.
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Paper mills do not openly advertise their fraudulent production but instead camouflage themselves as academic editing or ghostwriting agencies ready to "help prepare" masters or doctoral theses and publications, and their number is on the rise.
“They do not openly advertise their fraudulent production but instead camouflage themselves as academic editing or ghostwriting agencies ready to “help prepare” masters or doctoral theses and publications, and their number is on the rise (Abalkina et al. 2025).”
From Fake publications in biomedical science: red-flagging method indicates mass production (2026) · cites this paper as Abalkina et al. 2025
The opening section says the paper-mill industry has “mushroomed,” supporting the claim that it is growing. The “Research to understand mills” section says mills hide their activity, but our copy does not say they pose as academic editing or ghostwriting agencies or offer to help prepare theses and publications. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe problems and possible solutions for correctly attributed AI-generated articles overlap with those of paper mills.
“The problems and their possible solutions overlap with those of paper mills — networks that sell to researchers authorships and low quality manuscripts [26].”
From False authorship: an explorative case study around an AI-generated article published under my name (2025) · cites this paper as [26]
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Citations
Cites
Use of the Journal Impact Factor in academic review, promotion, and tenure evaluations
McKiernan, E. C., Schimanski, L. A., Nieves, C. M., Matthias, L., Niles, M. T., & Alperín, J. P. (2019) · eLife · doi:10.7554/elife.47338 · Cited by 379
Hvistendahl, M. (2013) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.342.6162.1035 · Cited by 256
Rice, D. B., Raffoul, H., Ioannidis, J. P. A., & Moher, D. (2020) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.m2081 · Cited by 241
Delving into LLM-assisted writing in biomedical publications through excess vocabulary
Kobak, D., González-Márquez, R., Horvát, E.-Á., & Lause, J. (2024) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2406.07016 · Cited by 214
Delving into LLM-assisted writing in biomedical publications through excess vocabulary
Kobak, D., González-Márquez, R., Horvát, E.-Á., & Lause, J. (2025) · Science Advances · doi:10.1126/sciadv.adt3813 · Cited by 213
Abalkina, A. (2023) · Learned Publishing · doi:10.1002/leap.1574 · Cited by 101
Self-citationExploratory analysis of text duplication in peer-review reveals peer-review fraud and paper mills
Day, A. (2022) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-022-04504-5 · Cited by 44
Self-citationA call for research to address the threat of paper mills
Byrne, J. A., Abalkina, A., Akinduro-Aje, O., Christopher, J., Eaton, S. E., Joshi, N., Scheffler, U., Wise, N. H., & Wright, J. (2024) · PLoS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3002931 · Cited by 39
Self-citationJoelving, F., & Watch, R. (2024) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.ado0309 · Cited by 35
The review mills, not just (self-)plagiarism in review reports, but a step further
Oviedo-García, M. (2024) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-024-05125-w · Cited by 35
Paper mills: a novel form of publishing malpractice affecting psychology
Bishop, D., & Abalkina, A. (2023) · Meta-Psychology · doi:10.15626/mp.2022.3422 · Cited by 33
Self-citationIdentifying fabricated networks within authorship-for-sale enterprises
Porter, S. J., & McIntosh, L. D. (2024) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-024-71230-8 · Cited by 22
Chain retraction: how to stop bad science propagating through the literature
Cabanac, G. (2024) · Nature · doi:10.1038/d41586-024-02747-1 · Cited by 21
Self-citationAnalysis of Retracted Manuscripts in Chemistry: Errors vs Misconduct
Sevryugina, Y. V., & Jimenez, R. (2023) · ACS Omega · doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c03689 · Cited by 20
Bik, E. M. (2024) · Nature Reviews Cancer · doi:10.1038/s41568-024-00702-w · Cited by 11
Self-citationReflections on the Misuses of ORCID iDs
Baglioni, M., Mannocci, A., Manghi, P., Atzori, C., Bardi, A., & Bruzzo, S. L. (2021) · ISTI Open Portal · doi:10.5281/zenodo.4548308 · Cited by 8
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Baglioni, M. et al. Preprint at Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4548309 (2021). · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly
Richardson, R. A. K., Hong, S. S., Byrne, J. A., Stoeger, T., & Amaral, L. A. N. (2025) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2420092122 · Cited by 129
Self-citationFalse authorship: an explorative case study around an AI-generated article published under my name
Spinellis, D. (2025) · Research Integrity and Peer Review · doi:10.1186/s41073-025-00165-z · Cited by 37
Meho, L. I. (2025) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-025-05480-2 · Cited by 27
Fake publications in biomedical science: red-flagging method indicates mass production
Sabel, B. A., Knaack, E., Gigerenzer, G., & Bilc, M.-I. (2026) · Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology · doi:10.1007/s00210-025-04275-9 · Cited by 51
“…the practical outcome will be of their recent investigations asking authors of 17,000 retractions to explain themselves (Mal-lapaty 2024) and sleuths’ call to “stamp out paper mills” (Abalkina et al. 2025); recent actions by the Chinese superior court are an encouraging signal (Mallapaty 2025).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Abalkina, A., Aquarius, R., Bik, E., Bimler, D., Bishop, D., Byrne, J., Cabanac, G., Day, A., Labbé, C., & Wise, N.
- Affiliations
- Freie Universität Berlin (DE)
- Radboud University Medical Center (NL)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (FR)
- Laboratoire d'Informatique de Grenoble (FR)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Abalkina, Anna
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2025-01-27
- Volume
- 637
- Issue
- 8048
- Pages
- 1047-1050
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W4406842793
- Cited by
- 59
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2026: 26 · 2025: 33
- FWCI
- 62.41
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Academic integrity and plagiarism
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Benford’s Law and Fraud Detection
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Keywords
- scientific fraud, research misconduct, paper mills, fraud detection, research integrity
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