One of the world’s largest open-access journal publishers is retracting over 500 papers, based on the discovery of unethical actions.
London-based Hindawi, which publishes over 200 peer-reviewed journals across multiple disciplines, says its research team in June identified “irregularities” in the peer review process in some of the journals.
“All Hindawi journals employ a series of substantial integrity checks before articles are accepted for publication. Following thorough investigation, we identified that these irregularities in the peer review process were the result of suspicious and unethical activities. Since identifying this unethical activity and breach of our processes, we began proactively adding further checks and improving our processes and continue to do so,” Liz Ferguson, a senior vice president for John Wiley & Sons, Hindawi’s U.S.-based parent company, said in a statement on Sept. 28….