An article by Author X was published in Journal A. The refereeing process was conducted along standard rules. Two months after publication, Journal A received a complaint from an independent researcher Y, demanding retraction of the article on the basis that the article was published with an author list representing only a minority of the actual collaboration, with no new experimental data or further improvement in data evaluation or method development. Researcher Y also stated that the article was void of valid physical content and that they would disavow the conclusions of the article.
Journal A contacted Author X for a response, who said that most of the statements made by Researcher Y did not meet the minimum standard of professional conduct and civilized behaviour, nor were they based on solid scientific grounds. One of the main claims of Researcher Y is that they have a “veto right” and can prohibit publications by the XX collaboration, including 25 scientists from five universities and three countries. Author X stated that the claim of a “veto right” could quite possibly be a violation of federal laws and regulations.
Journal A believes that Researcher Y‘s concerns go beyond the prerogatives of the journal. The issue relates to a long and complex disputed authorship issue into a collaboration (which started before the publication of the article). The journal believes it is not legitimate to try to resolve the frictions and different opinions between the members of the collaboration, which are no longer about the scientific publication. This is a dispute within a collaboration that should be resolved by members of the relevant scientific community and their institutions.
Journal A decided not to retract the paper but to offer the opportunity to Researcher Y to provide a “Comment” which could be associated with a “Reply” by Author X, if it was not offensive and was scientifically well argued.
Researcher Y provided a comment and Author A provided a reply to the comment. Both the comment and the reply were evaluated by an independent referee who recommended that Researcher Y should rewrite the comment by omitting all unnecessary “comments” and focus on the science and methods. The independent referee said the reply should concentrate on clarifying and/or disproving if possible the comment. The referee added: “Both the comment and the reply maybe useful for people willing to investigate this reaction further. Personally instead of getting involved into these lengthy discussions I would prefer to discuss methods to improve the experiment.”
Question for COPE Council
- What should Journal A do?
Advice on this case is from a small number of COPE Council Members. Most cases on the COPE website are presented to the COPE Forum where advice is offered by a wider group of COPE Members and COPE Council Members. Advice on individual cases is not formal COPE guidance.
The process carried out by the journal so far appears to be a reasonable response to this dispute. There is no basis for issuing an expression of concern, or a corrigendum, listing missing authors, as they, seemingly, do not want to be involved. There is also no basis for a retraction, as scientific merit has not seriously been challenged beyond mere assertion. Offering Researcher Y an opportunity to present their reservations about the paper, and Author X an opportunity for a reply is a fair way to air the scientific debate before the readership. The journal should now ask Researcher Y to revise their comment to comply with the points raised by the reviewer (ie, to depersonalise it and focus on the science and its methods). The journal should follow its normal process and send the revised comment and also any revised reply in response to its referee. The journal is not obliged to publish the comment if they do not deem the comment to have sufficient technical merit. Also, the journal should not publish a commentary that is unprofessional or possibly defamatory. If Researcher Y is unable (or unwilling) to edit their comment to focus on the scientific debate, as approved by the journal and the referee, then they lose that opportunity. If both the comment and reply are approved by the reviewer and are deemed by the journal to merit publication, they can be simultaneously published.
If the journal wishes to follow up on Researcher Y's assertion that they have a right of veto, they might need to see some proof of this.
The journal should also contact the relevant institutions so they are aware that the ongoing dispute that involves this collaboration has now affected this article and that the dispute needs to be mediated and resolved by those institutions.
Once the comment and the response are published and the institutions have been informed, the journal's involvement in the dispute will be over.