Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: OBJECTIVE: Paper mills are a growing threat to the integrity of science, yet their penetration in conference proceedings remains underexplored despite conferences being more important than journals in some scientific subfields. This study aims to identify papers in conference proceedings whose titles have been offered for sale on social media platforms. METHODS: We collected publication offers for more than 4,000 unique paper titles or topics from more than 200 social media channels and used semi-automated methods along with human assessment to match offers with papers published in IEEE conference proceedings. RESULTS: We identified 2,062 papers in 366 IEEE conference proceedings, accounting for up to 23.5% of an individual conference. These problematic papers are coauthored by more than 7,500 researchers from over 2,000 institutions or companies in 56 countries. The identified papers demonstrate collaboration anomalies, high diversity of affiliations per paper, citation manipulation, a predominance of six-author papers, and content irregularities. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show that paper mills are a large, organized, and often public market that commercializes scientific misconduct.
Source: Accountability in Research
Language: English
Subfield: Safety Research
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,500
Funder: European Commission
Award: G6229985519
OpenAlex ID: W7155880906