New study Researchers at the Northwestern University have set alarm bells about the future of academic research, warning that the publication of false science is growing in faster than that legitimate research.
During the last four centuries, an implicit agreement between scientists and countries was established: in exchange for the production of knowledge useful for economic and social development, government and other benefactors offer stable careers, good salaries and public recognition. This model, similar to the commercial enterprise, has been shown to be effective and replicated in most regions of the world.
However recent research published in the magazine Procedure for the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reveals that this system has been made up of researchers, academic institutions, government agencies, private companies and expansion platforms – shows the signs of breaking.
The authors claim that due to the great scope and specialization of modern science, each actor no longer assesses internal merits of its work, but quantitative indicators, such as the number of research papers, how often they are collected in ranking in university and awards and other recognitions.
“These indicators quickly became targets to measure the institutional and personal impact, which created unrestrained competition and growing inequality in the distribution of resources, incentives and rewards,” authors warn.
In turn, it led to a proliferation of fraud in some neighborhoods of the scientific community, because researchers are looking for fast ways of acquiring success indicators. “The use of numerical metrics for assessing projects and professionals … encourages the search for shortcuts,” says Pere Puigdonech, the President of the Committee on the Integrity of Research in Catalonia (CIR-CAT) in Spain. The types of detected fraud will range from the creation of fictional research, plagiarism, to buy and sell authorships and codes in newspapers.
Mafia that endangers scientific integrity
The northwest survey shows that cases of fraud are often not isolated incidents, but the result of complex networks that systematically act on undermining the integrity of science.
The research team behind this work, headed by Luis Amaral, a professor of engineering science and the applicable McCormick School Eingering engineering, reached large amounts of retired publications, editorial records and images and copy and copy of images.
Sources included the main aggregors of scientific literature – such as web science, Scopus, Pubmed / Medline and Openalex – as well as lists of magazines removed from these databases on quality violation or ethical standards. Поред тога, прикупљени су и подаци о повученим члановима који означавају истраживачки сајт за ревизију веб страница, коментари на сајту Сциенце-Папер СИТЕ ПУБПЕРЕЕР и уредничке метаподатке (имена и датум уреднике и датуми и прихватање и прихватање и прихватање).
This analysis pointed out the work of “Papermills” – serupological organizations that mass – produce maluscripts and sell them, sometimes through intermediaries, academics to quickly publish material. These works often contain counterfeit data, manipulated or covered by copyright, plagiarized content, and even absurd or physically impossible claims. “These networks are basically a criminal organization, work together to a fake science process,” Amaral said in a statement Posted by NorthVestern University.
