PIXABAY, PUBLICDOMAINPICTURESFollowing up on the hunch of an editor who noticed irregularities in the reviewers suggested by submitting authors, Springer has identified more than five dozen papers that were published through manipulated peer review. The publisher is now pulling 64 papers, which were published in 10 of its journals, it announced today (August 17).
“The peer-review process is one of the cornerstones of quality, integrity, and reproducibility in research, and we take our responsibilities as its guardians seriously,” the publisher’s statement reads. “We are now reviewing our editorial processes across Springer to guard against this kind of manipulation of the peer review process in future.”
Specifically, “we are working to support our external editors to make them aware of the issues and ensure that thorough checks of peer reviewers are completed,” Springer’s William Curtis, executive vice president for medicine and biomedicine, elaborated in an email to The Scientist. “Credentials from peer reviewers will be increasingly checked by our editorial office, which support our editors-in-chief, and some journals may request more information in the form of an institutional email address ...
