{"id":36580,"date":"2024-12-19T03:40:25","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T03:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stm-assoc.org\/?p=36580"},"modified":"2024-12-19T03:40:25","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T03:40:25","slug":"new-research-paper-highlights-key-questions-to-tackle-the-growing-threat-of-paper-mills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stm-assoc.org\/new-research-paper-highlights-key-questions-to-tackle-the-growing-threat-of-paper-mills\/","title":{"rendered":"New research paper highlights key questions to tackle the growing threat of paper mills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Research paper mills \u2014 covert organizations that produce fraudulent manuscripts for profit \u2014 pose a significant threat to science and scholarship. These unethical entities scale their operations using AI, sell authorship positions, and manipulate peer review, eroding trust in research and slowing progress in critical areas such as innovation, healthcare, and policy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/united2act.org\">United2Act<\/a> \u2014 a joint initiative by COPE and STM \u2014 has spent the past year taking decisive action to address the collective challenge of paper mills in scholarly publishing. Most recently, members of the United2Act working group on research have published a paper in PLOS Biology that outlines five critical questions that require urgent research to understand and address the scale, impact, and operations of paper mills:<\/span><b><\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>What are the features of paper mill products? <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Understanding these features is essential for detection and deterrence.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>What is the scale of the paper mill problem?<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> How widespread are these publications across fields and over time?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>How do paper mills operate and evade detection?<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Investigating their methods is key to dismantling their operations.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>To what extent are researchers and scholars aware of paper mills? <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Awareness levels vary across disciplines, and education efforts must be informed by evidence.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>How are paper mills affecting science and scholarship?<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> From citations to research practices, understanding their impact is vital to safeguarding the research ecosystem.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>A Call to Action<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The paper underscores the urgent need for dedicated funding, research, and collaborative efforts to combat paper mills and protect the integrity of science. Without bold and decisive action, paper mills will continue to scale, especially with the growing use of generative AI to fabricate manuscripts that are increasingly difficult to detect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Watch this short video below for key takeaways \u2014 and <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosbiology\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pbio.3002931\"><strong>access the full paper here.<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-36580-1\" width=\"640\" height=\"800\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com\/stm.offloadmedia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/19033349\/U2A-Plos-Paper-2.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com\/stm.offloadmedia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/19033349\/U2A-Plos-Paper-2.mp4\">https:\/\/s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com\/stm.offloadmedia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/19033349\/U2A-Plos-Paper-2.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The United2Act initiative brings together publishers, researchers, institutions, and infrastructure leaders to tackle this collective challenge. By answering these critical questions, we can take the next steps to identify, expose, and eliminate paper mills \u2014 preserving trust in science for generations to come.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Research paper mills \u2014 covert organizations that produce fraudulent manuscripts for profit \u2014 pose a significant threat to science and scholarship. These unethical entities scale their operations using AI, sell authorship positions, and manipulate peer review, eroding trust in research and slowing progress in critical areas such as innovation, healthcare, and policy.\u00a0 United2Act \u2014 a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,91,65,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements","category-paper-mills","category-research-integrity-strategic-area","category-videos-news-type"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>New research paper highlights key questions to tackle the growing threat of paper mills - STM Association<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/stm-assoc.org\/new-research-paper-highlights-key-questions-to-tackle-the-growing-threat-of-paper-mills\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New research paper highlights key questions to tackle the growing threat of paper mills - STM Association\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Research paper mills \u2014 covert organizations that produce fraudulent manuscripts for profit \u2014 pose a significant threat to science and scholarship. These unethical entities scale their operations using AI, sell authorship positions, and manipulate peer review, eroding trust in research and slowing progress in critical areas such as innovation, healthcare, and policy.\u00a0 United2Act \u2014 a...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/stm-assoc.org\/new-research-paper-highlights-key-questions-to-tackle-the-growing-threat-of-paper-mills\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"STM Association\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-19T03:40:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com\/stm.offloadmedia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/10052158\/stm-logo.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"188\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Holly STM Member\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@stmassoc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@stmassoc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Holly STM Member\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/stm-assoc.org\/new-research-paper-highlights-key-questions-to-tackle-the-growing-threat-of-paper-mills\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/stm-assoc.org\/new-research-paper-highlights-key-questions-to-tackle-the-growing-threat-of-paper-mills\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Holly STM Member\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/stm-assoc.org\/#\/schema\/person\/49625220c6669940d73ef9221aeb6662\"},\"headline\":\"New research paper highlights key questions to tackle the growing threat of paper mills\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-19T03:40:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/stm-assoc.org\/new-research-paper-highlights-key-questions-to-tackle-the-growing-threat-of-paper-mills\/\"},\"wordCount\":357,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/stm-assoc.org\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"*Announcements\",\"*Paper Mills\",\"*Research Integrity\",\"*Videos &amp; 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