Multiple journals appear to be affected by a citation cartel between a group of researchers across three universities, via the medium of special issues. All articles within the issues contain a high proportion of citations to the same researchers at the three universities, many as high as 100%. Looking at the pattern of citations to these researchers' work, they have only ever been cited in these special issues, giving the publisher a strong indication that this is intentional manipulation and not just a group of researchers working in a niche area (the topics covered are broad, implicating senior members of staff).
Given the very high proportions involved and the repeated pattern of behaviour, the publisher believes that the articles were only published to generate citations and that the scholarly content within them is minimal (to date, no indications of plagiarism have been found). The peer review for these issues was done ‘off-system’ and despite the publisher requesting copies of all peer review reports, they have yet to receive them (peer review ‘off-system’ is no longer allowed—these issues were published some years ago).
To date, expressions of concern on all affected articles have been issued but can anything more impactful be done? The publisher has reported the concerns to the ethics/integrity offices of the institutions concerned and are no longer working with the editorial teams implicated.
Question for COPE Council
- Would retraction of these articles be appropriate in this case? The publisher suspects manipulated/compromised peer review although there is no direct evidence.
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.
Does the journal have faith in the accuracy or validity of the findings, given the corrupted (and now unverifiable) process? If not, publishing expressions of concern is certainly appropriate. However, given that a journal would not accept a paper without peer review, and there is no solid evidence of genuine, effective peer review, then the editor should consider retraction of all of the papers. The journal should contact the editors who handled these articles and ask for an explanation (eg, where is the paperwork surrounding the peer review)? The journal should assess the content of these articles, beyond the citation cartel aspect. If the editor or subject expert believe there is no validity to the research and the authors and institutions are not responding, retraction would seem appropriate.