Springer Nature Journal Has Retracted Over 200 Papers Since September

Optical and Quantum Electronics, a Springer Nature journal, has retracted more than 200 papers since the start of September, and continues issuing retraction notices en masse. According to the notices, which have similar wording, the retractions come after the publisher identified problems with the articles including compromised peer review, inappropriate or irrelevant references, and nonsensical phrases, suggesting blind use of... “These investigations are based on intelligence from past work alongside whistleblower information,” Chris Graf, director of research integrity at Springer Nature in Oxford, UK, told Retraction Watch. But Graf declined to share the specifics of the inquiry: “We need to keep details of these investigations confidential to ensure that we do not inform the efforts of individuals who may engage in... Guillaume Cabanac, a computer scientist at the University of Toulouse, France, first highlighted issues with the journal in a February post on X. Cabanac has created software that spots odd language in academic papers he dubbed “tortured phrases,” which seem to be the result of attempts to circumvent plagiarism checks.

His Problematic Paper Screener had flagged nearly 50 articles in Optical and Quantum Electronics riddled with tortured phrases, mostly published in 2023. “I suspect papermill submissions + compromised peer review,” he wrote on X at the time, referring to shady services that sell authorship slots and citations on papers. You have /5 articles left.Sign up for a free account or log in. An academic journal published by Springer has retracted over 200 papers since the start of last month, Retraction Watch reported. The journal, Optical and Quantum Electronics, published at least 10 retraction notes on Tuesday alone, all regarding articles published in 2023 and 2024 and written by various authors. The notes contained similar messages, saying Springer had retracted the papers after an investigation into multiple articles found concerns.

The scope of the investigation wasn't specified. “These concerns include but are not limited to the article being out of scope for the journal, the peer-review process not being in line with editorial policy, inappropriate or irrelevant references being included or... “The publisher and editors-in-chief therefore no longer have confidence in the results and conclusions of this article and have agreed that it should be retracted.” Other similar retraction notes said the investigation raised concerns about a “compromised peer-review process.” Scientific publisher Springer Nature has begun to retract dozens of papers that relied on a dataset fraught with ethical and reliability concerns, The Transmitter has learned. Five papers have been retracted since 16 November, and 33 more retractions are planned, says Tim Kersjes, Springer Nature’s head of research integrity, resolutions.

The papers attempted to train neural networks to distinguish between autistic and non-autistic children in a dataset containing photos of children’s faces. Retired engineer Gerald Piosenka created the dataset in 2019 by downloading photos of children from “websites devoted to the subject of autism,” according to a description of the dataset’s methods, and uploaded it to... The dataset contains more than 2,900 photos of children’s faces, half of which are labeled as autistic and the other half as not autistic. After learning about a paper that cites the dataset, “I went and downloaded the dataset, and I was completely horrified,” says Dorothy Bishop, emeritus professor of developmental neuropsychology at the University of Oxford. “When I saw how it was created, I just thought, ‘This is absolute bonkers.’” Without identifying each child in the dataset, there is no way to confirm that any of them do or do not have autism, Bishop says.

A journal has retracted a 2025 paper on social media and anxiety after a reader raised questions about the data – and thanks to the mentorship of a sleuth or two. The article appeared in 2023 in BMC Psychology, a Springer Nature title. The sole author was Li Sun, whose affiliation is listed as the School of Marxism at Zhoukou Vocational and Technical College, in China. According to the abstract of the paper, the research explored “the impact of mindfulness-based mobile apps on university students’ anxiety, loneliness, and well-being.” Those apps were “Headspace, Calm, and Insight Timer” which “offer a... Springer Nature is retracting a book on machine learning that had multiple references to works that do not exist, Retraction Watch has learned. The move comes two weeks after we reported on the book’s fake references.

Soft Computing, a Springer Nature title, has retracted at least 335 papers this year, many from issues with guest editors. The mass retractions began in July, with the latest appearing November 4. The retraction notes contain identical language to notices in Environmental Science and Pollution Research and Optical and Quantum Electronics, which have also been retracting articles en masse this year: An investigation by the publisher found a number of articles, including this one, with a number of concerns, including but not limited to compromised editorial handling and peer review process, inappropriate or irrelevant references... Based on the investigation’s findings the publisher no longer has confidence in the results and conclusions of this article. Sleuths using the Problematic Paper Screener have flagged more than 700 articles in the journal that cite retracted or otherwise problematic papers or contain tortured phrases, nonstandard language that hints at the use of...

The 3,000+ journals in the Springer Nature portfolio published over 482,000 articles in 2024, according to data published this week on a new research integrity page on the company’s website. The page also shares a data point you don’t typically get from publishers: 2,923 articles were retracted. The numbers are a small part of the page, which outlines the tools the publisher uses for quality control, what prompts a research integrity investigation, and what happens during such investigations. The publisher breaks down the retraction numbers a little more: We asked Springer Nature why they chose to share these numbers, and who the intended audience of the page is. Alice Henchley, director of communications, integrity, ethics and editorial policy for the Springer Nature Group, replied:

We created the page to help provide more information on how the accuracy and integrity of research is maintained, particularly in light of the growing interest in how new technologies are impacting the research... We hope that this transparency will be helpful to the community and further demonstrate our commitment to scientific integrity, both in terms of the rigour we apply prior to acceptance, and the responsibility we... Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 50,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles.

And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List — or our list of nearly 100 papers with evidence they were written by ChatGPT? Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read): Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here.

For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected]. By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time. The number of retractions issued for research articles in 2023 has passed 10,000 — smashing annual records — as publishers struggle to clean up a slew of sham papers and peer-review fraud. Among large research-producing nations, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Russia and China have the highest retraction rates over the past two decades, a Nature analysis has found. Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

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