Saudis, Payola, and Papers
Reports of author affiliation shenanigans fail to interrogate the publisher enablement
A recent scandal covered in Science showed that Saudi universities have been paying top researchers for years to change their affiliations so that Saudi universities get credit, and that such practices had started to wane after being exposed.
These practices were first reported by Science in 2011, and had gotten worse over time, until being exposed and ameliorated to some degree in more recent years.
But it appears that “top researchers” may be only the tip of the iceberg here, as a new study of bibliometrics shows that Saudi universities continue to increase their apparent outputs far more than normal, but with first authorship affiliations diminishing and affiliations moving deeper into authorship lists, possibly in an effort to avoid scrutiny and change the game.
Institutions from Egypt, Iraq, and India also showed similar deviations from the norm, with increases in published articles from 2019 to 2023 ranging from 165% to 1457%, while outputs from the US controls (Caltech, MIT, Princeton, and UC Berkeley) increased from 1-6%.
While the institutions are flagged here, the journals, publishers, or the business models involved are not scrutinized, making these one-sided evaluations.
- Yes, it goes on, and yes, it’s bad, but are there enablers we need to also look at besides those in labs and institutions? Are pay-to-play business models, special issues, and certain questionable publishers core to enabling these trends?
Interesting stuff, but not the full picture, sadly.