Fake scientific journals are here to stay

TL;DR

Fake scientific journals, including predatory, hijacked, and hacked types, pose a significant threat to research integrity, requiring structural reforms in evaluation and governance to restore trust in scientific communication.

Contribution

This paper provides a three-level typology of fake journals, highlighting vulnerabilities and proposing reforms to combat fraudulent publishing practices.

Findings

Fake journals undermine research trust and integrity.

Cyberattacks and superficial peer review facilitate fraud.

Structural reforms are necessary to restore credibility.

Abstract

Scientific publishing is facing an alarming proliferation of fraudulent practices that threaten the integrity of research communication. The production and dissemination of fake research have become a profitable business, undermining trust in scientific journals and distorting the evaluation processes that depend on them. This brief piece examines the problem of fake journals through a three-level typology. The first level concerns predatory journals, which prioritise financial gain over scholarly quality by charging authors publication fees while providing superficial or fabricated peer review. The second level analyses hijacked journals, in which counterfeit websites impersonate legitimate titles to deceive authors into submitting and paying for publication. The third level addresses hacked journals, where legitimate platforms are compromised through cyberattacks or internal manipulation, enabling the distortion of review and publication processes. Together, these forms of misconduct expose deep vulnerabilities in the scientific communication ecosystem, exacerbated by the pressure to publish and the marketisation of research outputs. The manuscript concludes that combating these practices requires structural reforms in scientific evaluation and governance. Only by reducing the incentives that sustain the business of fraudulent publishing can the scholarly community restore credibility and ensure that scientific communication fulfils the essential purpose of reliable advancement of knowledge.