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Publication and collaboration anomalies in academic papers originating
from a paper mill: evidence from Russia
Anna Abalkina, Freie Universität Berlin
anna.abalkina@fu-berlin.de
Abstract
This study attempts to detect papers originating from the Russian paper mill “International
publisher” LLC. A total of 975 offers published during 2019-2021 on the 123mi.ru website
were analysed. The study allowed us to identify at least 303 papers (31%) that are
potentially linked to the paper mill. Further evidence of suspicious provenance from the
paper mill is provided: matches in number of coauthorship slots, year of publication,
country of the journal, country of a coauthorship slot and similarities of abstracts. This
study also demonstrates collaboration anomalies and the phenomenon of suspicious
collaboration in questionable papers and examines the predictors of the Russian paper
mill. The value of coauthorship slots offered by “International Publisher” LLC in 2019-2021
is estimated at $6.5 million. Since the study analysed a particular paper mill, it is likely that
the number of papers with forged authorship is much higher.
Keywords: ghostwriting, paper mills, academic misconduct, coauthorship for sale,
suspicious collaboration, hijacked journals
Introduction. Manufactured misconduct
Paper mills represent an offer or on-demand writing of fraudulent academic
manuscripts for sale. Paper mills also provide additional services, such as searches for
coauthors, submission of manuscripts, revision and control of publications and indexation
of the paper in international databases. Very often, fraudulent entities selling coauthorship
slots or entire academic papers mimic companies offering text-editing services or
translation services (Hvistendahl 2013). However, the cost of such paper mill production
significantly exceeds the cost of real editing services.
The frequency rate of papers originating from paper mills in the academic literature
is unknown. Recent investigations by research integrity experts have shown the infiltration
of the academic literature with paper mill production (Bik 2020, Schneider 2020). In 2021
journals initiated mass retractions. In January 2021, the Royal Society of Chemistry
announced a series of retractions by its journals. RSC Advances retracted 68 papers due to
the “systemic production of falsified research”, and Food and Function and RSC Medicinal
Chemistry retracted one paper each (RSC, 2021). All of these papers were submitted by
authors at Chinese hospitals, had common structures and templates and were assumed to
be productions of paper mills (Else & Van Noorden, 2021). In December 2021, SAGE
retracted 122 papers because of submission or peer-review manipulations associated with
paper mill production (Oransky 2021).
According to the Retraction Watch database, since 2020, massive retractions of
papers originating from paper mills have occurred (Figure 1). As of December 2021, 3450
fraudulent manufactured papers have been identified
1
. However, this discovery could be
just the tip of the iceberg because paper mills act on an anonymous basis, and their
production cannot be easily detected.
Figure 1
Retractions of paper-mill papers
Source: Retraction Watch. URL: https://retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database-
user-guide/
To date, paper mills have been detected due to anomalies, falsification/fabrications in
images and data, manipulations with peer review, and similarities between texts.
Streamlined production of dishonest papers is associated with the usage of common
templates despite not sharing the same coauthors, such as paper structure and similar
section titles (Byrne & Christopher 2020, Cabanac et al. 2021, Else & Van Noorden 2021,
Heck et al. 2021, RSC 2021), similar formatting (Byrne & Labbé 2017, Byrne & Christopher
2020), similar colours and types of diagrams (Cabanac et al. 2021), and identical fonts on
1
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zKxfaqug4ZhwHyGzslF38pFyC8xtU8lzmmOFMGYITDI/edit#gid=0
1 12 47 40
157
210 257
108 4 0 0 0 1 3 1 4
202
626
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Number of retracted papers
Publication date of a repracted paper Retraction date
figures (Byrne & Labbé 2017). Articles from paper mills could demonstrate other
discrepancies that could potentially draw suspicion of non-authentic authorship. Recent
evidence has also suggested suspicious authorship in papers of questionable provenance,
such as rare individual authorship (Retraction Watch 2016), lack of previous publications
on the topic of the paper (Retraction Watch 2016), unnatural collaborations between
coauthors from different universities (RAS 2020), and suspicious affiliations, e.g., a
university that unlikely supports certain types of experiments or research (Schneider
2021).
The production of paper mills demonstrates systematic violation of academic ethics
(Christopher 2018), e.g., fabrication and falsification of data (Else & Van Noorden 2021),
fabrication of images and western blots (Christopher 2018, van der Heyden 2021),
plagiarism (Retraction Watch 2016, RAS 2020), falsification of peer-review processes
(Grove 2021), and citation manipulations (Christopher 2021).
The majority of known paper mills originate from China (Hu & Wu 2013, Hvistendahl
2013, Liu & Chen 2018, Schneider 2020) and operate in medicine because of publication
requirements for the promotion of practising doctors. There is evidence of paper mill
operation in other countries, namely Iran and Russia (Stone 2016, Else & Van Noorden,
2021, Abalkina 2021). However, there is still little known about their activity. The goal of
this study is to shed light on the activity of Russian paper mills, to identify the fraudulent
papers originating from them and to detect a set of predictors of fraudulent papers.
Unethical publication practises in Russia
Paper mills offering coauthorship slots in papers submitted to international journals
is a rather new phenomenon in Russia. They appeared as a response to the new regulatory
framework of 2011-2012, setting new criteria for research evaluation, including
publications and citations in international journals indexed in Web of Science and Scopus
(Abalkina 2021) and setting nationwide indicators. According to President Putin’s May
decrees of 2012, the share of publications by Russian scholars among the total number of
publications in scientific journals index in Web of Science should reach 2.44% by 2015, and
at least five Russian universities should be ranked in the top 100 world’s leading
universities by 2020
2
. These legal acts shaped the academic landscape for the subsequent
decade. First, the 5-100 project, also known as the Russian Academic Excellence Project,
selected 21 Russian universities to enter international top rankings, which also meant
2
https://rg.ru/2012/05/09/nauka-dok.html
increasing their publication performance. Second, in response to the new legislative
framework, universities introduced new publication criteria for effective contracts,
promotion or financial benefits.
Unfortunately, in addition to the positive effects of the new framework, there were
some negative consequences of questionable or even fraudulent behaviour by scholars.
First, a significant increase in publications in predatory journals was registered. RAS
(2020) found numerous publications with plagiarism or questionable authorship in papers
submitted to predatory journals by Russian scholars. Second, a significant increase in paper
mills offering coauthorship for sale was discovered.
In Russia, there is a long-standing base for the illegal or unofficial marketing of papers
written for submission in international journals. Recent work by Davydov and Abramov
(2021) showed the blatant scale of contract cheating, by both students and faculty
members. Evidence has also suggested that, over several decades, dozens of dissertation
mills have flourished in Russia (Rostovtsev 2017, Abalkina 2020). More than 10,000
dissertations with massive plagiarism were detected by Dissernet, a grassroots initiative to
address the issue of plagiarism in PhD theses and academic papers. Journals were well
integrated into these dissertation mill schemes due to the requirements for publication of
dissertation research results. The Russian Academy of Sciences Commission for
Counteracting the Falsification of Scientific Research investigated 2528 papers with
plagiarism and “obscure” coauthorship in 541 Russian journals. Journals retracted more
than 800 papers after communication by the Commission (Chawla 2020). Later, a report by
the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS 2020) observed the reorientation of dishonest
activity from producing plagiarized PhD theses to shadow marketing of academic papers.
“International publisher” LLC
There are dozens of advertisements on the internet that approach Russian scholars to
purchase coauthorship in a paper that will be submitted to a journal indexed in Scopus or
Web of Science. It is difficult to confirm that all of these sales of coauthorship truly occur.
These offers could be fraud to collect money from scholars and do not guarantee
publication of the paper. Among these companies, “International Publisher” LLC offers
coauthorship for sale and guarantees publication. However, is it a real paper mill company?
A correspondent for the Russian online media The Insider documented a test purchase
from “International Publisher” LLC of coauthorship in a paper, which was supposed to be
published in 2019 (Litoy 2019). The paper, entitled “Project-Based Learning as a Tool for
the Formation and Development of the Entrepreneurial Skills of Students” was indeed
published in the Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, together with several coauthors.
The paper was devoted to surveying students in Omsk, Russia, but none of the coauthors
live or work in the Omsk region. Moreover, among all of the coauthors on the paper, none
specializes in education studies (among the coauthors, there are journalists and scholars
specializing in chemistry, history, and engineering). Some of the coauthors confirmed that
they purchased a coauthorship slot at “International Publisher” LLC (Litoy, 2019).
“International Publisher” LLC is one of the best known companies in Russia that
offers coauthorship for sale. It is a registered legal entity and has an office in one of the
modern skyscrapers in the Moscow International Business Center (Moscow-City).
“International Publisher” LLC claims on its website that approximately 20,000
scholars published 4,000 papers in journals indexed in Scopus or Web of Science with the
intermediation of the company. Offers to purchase coauthorship are openly listed on the
123mu.ru website (in Russian) or on the website with a rather clearer name: http://buy-
sell-article.com/coauthorship.php#banner (multilingual version). As of mid-December
2021, the website listed 1201 papers with between one and five authorship slots to
purchase.
In this paper auction, one can choose the topic of the paper, his or her position in the
list of authors, the quartile of the journal, the date of publication, and the database where
the journal will be indexed. As of mid-December 2021, 1141 papers for sale should have
been indexed in Scopus, 238 papers in Web of Science, and 39 on Russian lists of journals
compiled by the Higher Attestation Commission (VAK list).
The papers offered cover several disciplines, such as economics, law, education,
linguistics, medicine, engineering, and agriculture. All of these areas (except linguistics) are
considered to be the most corrupt in Russia. According to Dissernet’s data, economics,
education, law, medicine, and engineering represent 83% of all detected plagiarized PhD
theses in Russia (www.dissernet.org).
According to the website, an author should not worry about anything; “International
Publisher” LLC will take care of the entire process of publication and indexation of the
manuscript with the name of the client. S/he needs only pay. The price range for
coauthorship varies from 14,760 rubles (180 euros) to 410,000 rubles (5,000 euros). The
price depends on the position of the coauthor (1st coauthorship costs the most) and the
impact factor and reputation of the journal. For example, according to the offer, the highest
price (5,000 euros) is charged for 1st coauthorship on a paper that will be submitted,
according to “International Publisher” LLC, to the special issue of a reputable journal of
Frontiers Media. The value of coauthorship slots offered by “International Publisher” LLC
with publication dates in 2019-2021 is estimated at $2.6 million. The price of all
approximately 2000 papers offered over nearly three years reaches $6.5 million.
Why ”International Publisher” LLC guarantees the publication of a manuscript
despite the usual uncertainty of acceptance due to peer review can be explained by several
reasons. First, this broker company claims to sell coauthorship on manuscripts that are
“already written and accepted by the journals”. Second, according to the offers,
“International Publisher” LLC submits manuscripts to journals with low impact factors
(presumably predatory journals), where the probability of acceptance is high. Third,
”International Publisher” LLC claims that it collaborates with journals and their editors and
agrees upon the dates of publication. The offers can confirm these statements because
some offers include the editor of the journal as a coauthor, which is mentioned in a
comment on the offer. Fourth, according to the information on its website, “International
Publisher” LLC also owns international journals, ensuring risk-free publication of the
auctioned manuscripts (Litoy, 2019). Fifth, “International Publisher” LLC approaches
legitimate authors to buy coauthorship in their high-quality manuscripts. It claims the
following on its website:
“We also work with foreign authors who publish the articles in good Q1-Q2
journals. The process looks like this: an author with a high Hirsch index writes an
article to submit to a quality journal; one place is assigned to him; the remaining 2-3
places in the article are for sale. The payment is divided among the journal, the
author, and us. Such schemes cannot be traced since there are only two sides, and
each of them is interested in continuing cooperation”.
Like many other broker companies, “International Publisher” LLC in its contracts
mimics legitimate services providing “publishing services”, e.g., “scientific journal
selection” and assistance in the “publication of research” in journals (see Appendix 1).
Because both “International Publisher” LLC and users who purchase coauthorship
demonstrate unethical behaviour, they attempt to maintain confidentiality. The titles of the
journal and coauthors are available to scholars only after payment.
There is also a special condition in the contract:
“Each Party undertakes to maintain complete confidentiality of financial,
commercial and other information received from the other Party. Such
information could be transferred to Third Party only under the written consent
of the both Parties, as well as in cases provided by law”. (see Appendix 1)
“International Publisher” LLC uses aggressive marketing to attract potential clients.
In addition to the website where the company impudently offers to sell coauthorship slots,
it uses other malicious strategies. According to the website information, the company has
contracts with different universities, and it organizes seminars for university faculties on
publication strategies in international journals
3
. There is evidence of aggressive mail
spamming of offers. The more that the company expands abroad, especially into the
markets of post-Soviet countries, the Middle East and China, the more that it founds local
offices. More than 10% of published papers are associated with China, Saudi Arabia, and
the United Arab Emirates.
The nonethical activity of “International Publisher” LLC has received attention in
media and blogs at both the national and international levels (Clarivate 2019, Litoy 2019,
Marcus 2019, Chawla 2020, Abalkina 2021). However, its activity and consequences have
not yet been investigated by scholars or by academic officials in Russia. In December 2021
Retraction Watch published the report by Perron et al. (2021) on the activity of
“International Publisher” LLC. It focused on the communication with authors, journals and
publishers concerning problematic papers from the paper mill. This current study is an
independent research that sheds the light on the long-standing activity of the Russian
paper mill “International Publisher” LLC and identifies a set of predictors of fraudulent
papers.
Data
The data were obtained from two main sources. First, since 2019, we collected the
offers of “International Publisher” LLC published on the 123mi.ru/1 website. Second, the
titles of papers were also provided in the contracts. We found that many contracts,
especially those concluded by foreign offices, were not offered via their websites. Nearly
every offer on the website 123mi.ru/1 comprises the topic of the paper, number of
coauthorships for sale, price of a coauthorship, data about the journal (indexation in
3
https://www.bio.msu.ru/news/view.php?ID=1457
international scientometric database, quartile, country or region, scientific area), deadline
for submission and approximate date of publication. “International Publisher” LLC does not
openly disclose the title of the journal; the title is only available after payment.
“International Publisher” LLC started to publish offers of coauthorship for sale in mid-
December 2018. Since then, more than 2000 offers of papers with coauthorship for sale
have been created, and approximately 1000 papers, according to our estimation, have been
published. The website claims that, as of December 18, 2021, 5618 coauthorship slots had
been sold.
Identification of the papers
The offers contain details that can facilitate the recognition of the published papers.
First, the unique topic (title) of the article can provide sufficient information to find the
paper. The final result can be confirmed by the year of publication, country of the journal,
indexation in international databases and the number of coauthorship slots. Please see
Figure 2 as an example of the identification of a paper.
A total of 975 papers and their titles were examined to detect auctioned papers
published in journals. Each title from an offer was manually searched in Google, Google
Scholar or Scopus. Some of the titles were found in Russian, so they were translated with
Google Translate before the search.
As of mid-December 2021, 303 papers that potentially originated from the paper mill
were identified. The list of these papers can be accessed via
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vzjtRPX7kd2KczdtKONEpRZb2F-
4lj5Sd9jL6DfbiBk/edit?usp=sharing. This list will be updated as soon as new papers
potentially originating from this paper mill are identified. We included on the list only
those problematic papers for which we have sound evidence of suspicious origin. The list
does not include dozens of cases that were submitted with the intermediation of
”International Publisher” LLC but that were not offered through their 123mi.ru/1 website.
It also does not include problematic cases in which we doubted whether they came from
“International Publisher” LLC.
Figure 2
Example of the identification of the offer
In some cases, it was a challenge to prove suspicious provenance. This was especially
the case for papers with very common topics or more or less identical titles. We illustrate
this difficulty with an identification and demonstration example (see Table 1).
Table 1
Identification of papers
Offer
Title found
Title found
Title
Supply chain and
supply logistics as
new areas of study in
higher education
Supply chain and
supply logistics as
new area of study in
higher education
Supply chain and
logistics as new areas
of study in higher
education
Region/country of
a journal
Europe
Germany
Venezuela
Number of
coauthorship slots
4
4
7
Year of publication
2020
2020
2020
Decision
Confirm
Reject
*This is a demonstration. The titles are imaginary (the key words were changed to other
terms) to avoid involving possible legitimate papers in this discussion.
We provide further evidence that these papers could be associated with the paper
mill (see Figure 2).
For every paper, there is information about the deadline of publication and the
number of coauthorship slots. More offers on the website contain information about the
region or country of the journal indexed in Scopus or Web of Science (see Table 2).
Table 2
Matches of suspicious papers
Number of
papers
Number of
papers
Title (equal)
253
Number of papers
with four matches
140
Very similar
44
Number of papers
with three
matches
115
Equal year
279
Number of papers
with two matches
47
Equal number of
coauthorship slots
220
Number of papers
with one match
1
Equal country/region of a
journal
198
The mismatch of the number of coauthorship slots, date of publication or country of
the journal can be explained in several ways. Fluctuations in the number of coauthors occur
because not all coauthorship slots were sold or because it is possible to purchase an entire
paper, e.g., all coauthorship slots, adding more coauthors to the paper. Mismatches in the
year of publication are rather rare (only 24 papers) and are mainly associated with earlier
publication than was intended. In 35% of cases, the country/region of the journal does not
correspond to the offer due to deindexation of the journal from Scopus or rejection of an
article. We also suspect that, in some cases, “International Publisher” LLC was attracted by
special offers from other journals and changed the target journal, as in the case of multiple
submissions, to a hijacked journal instead.
There is only one paper on the list with only one match. We included it on the list of
questionable papers because we have additional evidence of the affiliation country of the
author. Moreover, this author is a coauthor of another paper on the list.
For some papers, the country of coauthorship slot and abstracts are also available,
which could provide sound evidence of questionable provenance of papers (see the list of
problematic papers).
Collaboration anomalies
1. Suspicious collaborations
Under normal conditions, collaboration occurs on the basis of mutual scientific
interests and research on similar topics and leads to joint work. Such collaborations are not
accidental and involve personal acquaintances. In the case of coauthorship for sale, the
purchase of slots of the manuscript occurs independently. A scholar pays for his or her
coauthorship slot and order in the paper without knowing the other coauthors. Thus, the
purchase of slots for the same paper occurs independently by authors who, in many cases,
do not know each other. This phenomenon was also mentioned in the report by RAS
(2020).
The patterns of such collaboration can be observed in the variety of affiliations
among the authors of the article. Moreover, in many cases, the “authors” of an individual
manuscript specialize in different disciplines that also do not correspond to each other
and/or to the topic of a paper. In other words, the phenomenon of suspicious collaboration
supposes a collaboration of scholars who: 1) might not be familiar with each other; 2) do
not have common research interests; 3) are affiliated with different universities; 4)
specialize in different disciplines; 5) and might not specialize in the topic of the paper. A
striking example of such collaboration is a paper written by scholars from an economic
University A and a medical University B on the topic of chemical engineering. Such a
collaboration pattern is not misconduct itself but can serve as a predictor of violation of
academic ethics and suspicious origin from a paper mill.
Suspicious collaborations can also be observed at the university level. Suspicious
coauthorship includes collaborations in which the coauthors are affiliated with different
organizations that might not engage in joint scientific cooperation. These cases can be
detected by the comparison of collaboration in Russian and international journals. For
example, according to the Russian scientometric database e-Library, the above mentioned
medical University B is outside the top 100 collaboration organizations of the economic
University A. In contrast, according to Scopus data, the medical University B reached the
sixth rank among the top collaboration organizations of the economic University A. These
data and such a mismatch suggest that such cooperation most likely represents artificial
collaboration for the purpose of publication in international journals to inflate the
publication record.
Another anomaly that can be observed in the collaborations linked to the paper
mill is the presence of the first authorship associated with China. Approximately 14% of
problematic papers from our list have Chinese scholars as the first coauthor. This finding is
likely related to the system of financial rewards in China, where the first author receives
everything (Liu & Chen 2018).
Such collaboration anomalies can be explained by country-specific patterns. First,
the new system of requirements for publications and effective contracts introduced in
Russian universities has required more research output. This policy led to the destruction
of scientific collaboration and its replacement by groups interested in publication in
international journals (Guba 2022, in print). Second, such artificial collaborations appear to
share the financial costs of publication. This phenomenon was also observed in Ukraine
(Mryglod et al. 2021).
2. Coauthorship-specific patterns: number of coauthors
The increasing number of publications by Russian authors has been accompanied by
a declining share of single-authored papers and an increasing number of coauthors and
23
51
96 86
46
1
123457
Number of affiliations
affiliations per article. Matveeva et al. (2021) examined the trend of collaboration patterns
in publications with fewer than ten coauthors and demonstrated that the average number
of affiliations per publication by 21 universities of the Russian University Excellence
Initiative (Project 5-100) increased from 2.2 in 2012 to 2.6 in 2016.
In contrast, the average number of affiliations of problematic papers that potentially
originated from paper mills is 3.3, while the average number of coauthors is 3.9 per article.
These data do not suggest increased collaboration between authors but rather anomalies in
scientific collaboration of the sample, which in all likelihood was the result of the
acquisition of coauthorship by independent scholars.
Figure 3
Affiliation and collaboration structures of papers potentially originating from the
paper mill
Another significant aspect of authorship patterns is the share of single-authored
papers. According to Web of Science data, in 1993-2019, the share of solo papers by
Russian scholars reached 16% (Chankseliani et al. 2021). Of course, coauthorship patterns
are highly dependent on the relevant discipline. The largest share of single-authored
publications can be found in the humanities. According to the Russian Science Citation
Index, among the 100 most successful authors in terms of the number of publications in
relevant disciplines, the share of single-authored papers in the majority of social and
human sciences exceeded 50%. In economics and psychology, it is more than 40%, and the
smallest share is registered in astronomy, physics and chemistry because these disciplines
are characterized by large teams and even mega-collaborations (Handbook on
Scientometrics 2021). In our sample of suspicious papers, there are only five (see Figure 3)
single-authored papers, representing 1.7%. “International Publisher” LLC sells a single
5 22
77
115
75
6 3
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Number of co-authors
authorship only in Russian journals that are not subject to serious demand. According to
the evidence of the offers of “International Publisher” LLC, single authorship can be mostly
explained by the lack of purchases of other coauthorship slots on the paper.
3. Alphabetical order
There are different norms regarding how to order coauthors of papers in different
disciplines. Many disciplines apply contribution-based approaches or seniority rules
(Fernandes & Cortez 2020). Some disciplines, such as economics, mathematics, and high
energy physics, use mainly an alphabetical order in scientific publishing (Frandsen &
Nicolaisen 2010, Waltman 2012, Weber 2018, Fernandes & Cortez 2020).
The majority of papers potentially originating from the Russian paper mill have
from three to five coauthors. Out of 298 papers, 263, or 88.3% (I excluded the papers with
one author), did not follow the rule of alphabetical order, including papers related to
economics and business. The lack of alphabetical order is a consequence of the slot-order
principle and could serve as a predictor of problematic papers.
Each individual paper might seem legitimate unless we analyse all of the sample
and identify some anomalies that could predict fraudulent papers. To conclude the results
section, we provide the peculiar features and predictors of the Russian paper mill.
- Suspicious collaborations
o Diversity of affiliations per paper
o Specialization of the universities not corresponding with each other
(financial universities with medical universities if the subject of the paper is
not the economics of health care, for example).
o Specialization of the authors does not correspond to the title of the
manuscript
o Affiliations of the authors do not correspond to the topic of the manuscript
- Lack of single-authored papers
- Lack of alphabetical order
- The use of commercial email is not a sign of a paper mill, as in many Chinese paper
mills (Seifert 2021). Many legitimate scholars in Russia use their personal email
addresses for submissions.
- Similar structure of the papers. Normally, the traditional IMRAD structure is used, in
which M is frequently entitled “Materials and Methods”.
- The majority of clients of the paper mill are affiliated with universities but not with
research institutes, which are numerous in Russia.
- The majority of suspicious papers are associated with Russia, Kazakhstan, China,
Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates (see Appendix 2).
Journals
Journals are a key element in the system of publication of papers originating from
paper mills. Articles supposedly originating from the “International Publisher” LLC paper
mill have been published in hundreds of different journals. Initially, “International
Publisher” LLC focused on publishing in a limited number of low-quality and predatory
journals, such as Opcion and Espacios. Later, these journals were deindexed from Scopus.
According to the website of ”International Publisher” LLC, in 2020, the company changed
its strategy and invited legitimate scholars for collaboration to sell ready texts or
coauthorship slots. There is evidence that legitimate scholars receive such dishonest offers
(Hyndman 2020). This policy change can be explained by the instability of publications in
predatory journals, which can be quickly excluded from international scientometric
databases. Moreover, dishonest papers in predatory journals can be identified. An
investigation by the Commission for Counteracting the Falsification of Scientific Research
of the Russian Academy of Sciences showed that a number of articles published in
predatory journals appeared to be the result of collaboration with paper mills (RAS 2020).
The RAS report identified 259 publications with translated plagiarism and problematic
coauthorship (RAS 2020).
Indeed, since the fall 2020 and 2021, priority was reoriented toward legitimate
journals of reputable publishers (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Emerald, Wiley, Taylor &
Francis, etc.). In addition, there was a significant increase in the number of journals in
which papers from the paper mill were published. We identified problematic papers in a
total of 118 journals. Obviously, many legitimate journals are not aware of the submission
of articles from the paper mill. Individually tailored articles are submitted separately to one
journal. According to the data obtained, 82 legitimate journals have published one article
from the paper mill (Figure 4). These data should be interpreted with caution because we
did not identify all of the offers.
Analysis of the offers allowed us to conclude that “International Publisher” LLC is
very careful to submit numerous papers to legitimate journals, limiting submissions to one
or several papers per year, making it impossible for an individual journal to detect a
problematic paper because a single paper can appear absolutely legitimate.
However, apparently, a number of journals still turn out to be corrupt. According to
“International Publisher”’s website, the company wanted to acquire a number of journals.
In addition, dishonest cooperation with editors of some journals was not excluded.
Figure 4
Number of papers per individual journal
1. Questionable collaboration with journals
Appendix 3 shows that the greatest number of papers were published in one journal, the
International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning. We found evidence of
suspicious collaboration between the journal and the paper mill. In summer 2020,
“International Publisher” LLC posted an offer:
“Special issue
Note: this special issue will also contain papers #1081, #1082, #1083, #1084,
#1085, #1086, #1087, #1088, #1089, #1090 on our website. A single author is free
to purchase not more than 2 papers from this special issue tops. This is one of
journals requirements.”
All ten papers were planned to be published in a German journal indexed in Scopus,
Emerging Sources Citation Index, and EI Compendex. We detected nine of ten papers
published in the same issue of the International Journal of Emerging Technologies in
Learning, matching all of the journal characteristics in the offer (see Appendix 3). The same
type of special issue offer was planned for the International Journal of Interactive Mobile
Technologies, which belongs to the same publisher, Kassel University Press GMBH, as the
82
18
2 2 3 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1
1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 11 13 18 26 29
Number of journals
Number of papers
previous one. Appendix 4 shows five of 10 detected papers in the issue. The issue itself
included only ten papers mostly “written” by Russian scholars that perfectly match the
number of offers. However, we do not have sufficient supportive evidence to match the
remaining five offers.
Such examples of two journals from the same publisher provide evidence of
suspicious collaboration. It is highly unlikely that the journals are not aware of the
questionable provenance of the papers. The share of identified problematic papers
represents 3.0% of all papers indexed in Scopus by the International Journal of Emerging
Technologies in Learning in 2020 and 2.4% in the International Journal of Interactive
Mobile Technologies in 2020.
2. Questionable collaboration with editors
Analysis of offers and papers potentially originating from the paper mill allowed us to
identify at least one episode of questionable collaboration between editors of MDPI
journals and “International Publisher” LLC. Nineteen of 20 identified papers published in
MDPI journals had a specific feature: they were coauthored by scholars associated with one
Eastern European country; 17 of them were affiliated with University C, and two had an
affiliation with University D in this Eastern European country. One might suggest that these
coauthors dishonestly purchased a coauthorship slot, but we suppose that the relationship
is of a different nature. Some of these Eastern European coauthors were editors of several
MDPI journals or guest editors of special issues. One could suggest that it is a coincidence,
but some of the offers on the 123mi.ru website mentioned straightforwardly that one
coauthorship slot of the paper was reserved for the editor of the journal or editor of the
journal from this particular country. This coauthorship pattern in MDPI journals served as
a good predictor of other dishonest papers.
Four MPDI journals (Sustainability (Switzerland), Journal of Theoretical and Applied
Electronic Commerce Research, Energies, Mathematics) were involved in such suspicious
collaboration patterns (see Figure 5).
Figure 5
Suspicious collaboration patterns of MDPI journal editors
Red line - coauthorship in a paper potentially originating from the paper mill
Blue line - guest editor of a special issue
Green line – academic editor of a paper potentially originating from the paper mill.
At least seven papers potentially originating from the paper mill were coauthored by
three editors of MDPI journals. All of them were affiliated with University C. Two editors
were academic editors on one paper, likely purchased on the black market of academic
papers. All three editors mentioned in Figure 5 were also guest editors of special issues of
Energies and Sustainability (Switzerland), in which several papers of suspicious
provenance were published. At least 10 other scholars from University C coauthored
problematic papers that were published in MPDI journals.
3. Hijacked journals
Another pattern of papers potentially originating from the paper mill was detected.
Twenty-one papers of questionable provenance were published in hijacked journals that
mimic legitimate journals and fraudulently collect fees for rapid publication without
providing peer review (Jalalian & Dadkhah 2015, Abalkina 2020, Moussa 2021). We
detected such papers in three hijacked journals: Journal of Talent Development and
Excellence (Abalkina 2020), Journal of Southwest Jiaotong University, and International
Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
4
.
Such collaboration between this broker company and fraudulent publishers provides
further evidence for how hijacked journals work. Hijacked journals can publish thousands
of papers over several months. Such numerous submissions are provided not only by
aggressive marketing and spam emails but also by collaboration with national broker
companies that have their own databases and clientele and accumulate papers for
publication. Broker companies are attracted by the possibility of providing fast and
guaranteed publication. However, broker companies themselves can be cheated by
hijacked journals, as the case of “International Publisher” LLC shows. This conclusion is
drawn from the detection of several republications of papers in hijacked journals with the
same set of coauthors and on similar topics but with slightly different texts (see Table 3). A
possible explanation for this republication might be that ”International publisher” LLC
guaranteed the indexation of the published papers in Scopus or Web of Science, which is
problematic in the case of hijacked journals. All nonlegitimate content from the Journal of
Talent Development and Excellence was withdrawn by Scopus, and there is no evidence of
indexation of papers from the Journal of Southwest Jiaotong University or International
Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity. Therefore, contractual obligations
forced to republish similar papers in legitimate journals, in most cases without advertising
a respective offer on their websites. This republication of papers with the same set of
coauthors and similar topics provides further evidence of possible provenance from the
paper mill.
Table 3
Republication of papers from hijacked journals
N
Title in a hijacked
journal
Hijacked
journal
Republished paper
Journal
1
Formation and
Development of the
Scientific and Scientific-
Technical Activity
Systems at Universities
Journal of Talent
Development and
Excellence, 2020
Study of the system of
scientific and scientific-
technical activities of
agrarian and economic
universities
International Journal of
Engineering Pedagogy,
2021
2
Social Networks as a
Means of Professional
Communication
Journal of Talent
Development and
Excellence, 2020
The Role of Social Networks
in the Organization of the
Educational Process and
International Journal of
Interactive Mobile
Technologies, 2021
4
All of the journals published at the website http://sersc.org/ are most likely hijacked journals.
Learning
3
Digital Economy as A
Factor for Increasing
the Competitiveness of
Countries and Regions
Journal of Talent
Development and
Excellence, 2020
Digital Development and Its
Impact on Regions’
Competitiveness
World Scientific, 2021
4
Life Expectancy as an
Economic Category:
Social, Epidemiological
and Macroeconomic
Context
Journal of Talent
Development and
Excellence, 2020
Population Aging and Its
Impact on the Country's
Economy*
Social Science Quarterly,
2021
5
An Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles Navigation
System on the Basis of
Pattern Recognition
Applications
Journal of
Southwest
Jiaotong
University/Xi'na
n Jiaotong Daxue
xuebao, 2020
An unmanned aerial vehicles
navigation system on the
basis of pattern recognition
applications—Review of
implementation options and
prospects for development*
Journal of Software:
Practice and Experience,
2021
6
Internet Censorship in
Developing Countries
Journal of Talent
Development and
Excellence, 2020
Government regulation of
the internet as instrument of
digital protectionism in case
of developing countries
Journal of Information
Science, 2021
7
Resource Sharing:
Digital Economic
Community Mediation
Journal of Talent
Development and
Excellence, 2020
Formation and
Implementation of a ‘Digital
Single Market’ Concept in the
Context of Digital Economy
Expansion
Global Business Review,
2021
8
Criteria for the Quality
of Training of Future
Specialists in Higher
Educational Institutions
International
Journal of
Disaster
Recovery and
Business
Continuity, 2020
Determination of criteria for
assessing the quality of
training future specialists for
higher education
International Journal of
Educational
Management, 2021
* - a separate offer was published on the 123mi.ru website.
Discussion
The goal of our present study was to identify papers originating from the paper mill
“International Publisher” LLC, analysing 975 offers from the website 123mi.ru. We
detected 303 papers (31%) that potentially originated from this paper mill. Unfortunately,
we still did not recognize more than 600 other papers with forged authorship that
infiltrated the academic literature.
Since we analysed only one paper mill, “International Publisher” LLC, there remains
evidence of other paper mills in Russia and other post-Soviet countries (Marcus 2021). It is
likely that the real number of paper mill production is much higher, and we detected only
the tip of the iceberg.
Such production of Russian paper mills is difficult to detect due to individually
tailored papers being submitted to more than one hundred different international journals.
Journals themselves have no opportunity to notice irregularities from one single paper that
can seem absolutely legitimate. This study sheds light on the patterns of the paper mill
“International Publisher” LLC, which could help journals to identify suspicious papers.
The orientation towards publications in the journals indexed by Scopus and Web of
Science has become a trap in the system of research output evaluation in Russia. The
nationwide criteria require increasing publications from universities, and universities in
turn motivate faculty to publish more to increase funding. Unfortunately, such a strategy, in
addition to its advantages, transforms into a win-win strategy when faculty members with
high workloads are unable to produce high-quality papers, but they can receive financial
benefits with dishonest behaviour, while universities receive budget funding due to
increased publication records.
Conclusions
This study attempted to identify papers with forged coauthorship originating from
the Russian paper mill “International Publisher” LLC by searching the paper titles from 975
offers of coauthorship for sale and confirming the results by analysing the country of the
journal, year of issue, and number of coauthorship slots. The major contributions of this
paper are the following.
1) The current study allowed us to identify 303 suspicious papers that are most likely
associated with the Russian paper mill “International Publisher”. We also detected at least
eight republications of papers previously published in hijacked journals.
2) The Russian paper mill has a diversified strategy of collaboration with journals: a)
one paper-one journal principle, e.g., submission of a problematic paper to an individual
legitimate journal only once; b) submission to low-quality or predatory journals for which
the rate of acceptance is rather high; c) dishonest collaboration with journals; and d)
dishonest cooperation with the editors of journals.
3) The prevalence of dishonest papers from the Russian paper mill varies across the
journals: the major share of papers from the paper mill are published in predatory journals
or in journals with dishonest collaboration. At least 3.0% and 2.4% of papers from
International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning and International Journal of
Interactive Mobile Technologies represent dishonest papers potentially originating from a
paper mill.
4) The majority of papers potentially originating from the paper mill are mainly
associated with Russia but also with Kazakhstan, China, Ukraine, and the United Arab
Emirates.
5) The analysis showed irregularities between the sample and common organization
of science in Russia, providing further evidence of questionable provenance of the sample
papers: a) suspicious collaboration between scholars affiliated with different
organizations; b) topics of paper not corresponding to the specialization of the coauthors
and their previous work; and c) the average number of coauthors in the sample being
larger than it is typical in Russia, and vice versa, the number of solo papers being
significantly smaller.
6) The present study provides further evidence of hijacked journal activity. This study
demonstrates the strategies of hijacked journals in attracting potential authors through the
intermediation of broker companies.
Acknowledgements
I acknowledge the assistance of Sofia Ragozina in recognizing the papers; Evgeniy
Enikeev for assistance in writing the script; and Andrey Zayakin for providing additional
data. I am grateful to Guram Kvaratskhelia for technical assistance.
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Appendix 1
Example of a standard contract
CONTRACT PAID PUBLICATION №14.1
Moscow
10.12.2021
Service User, hereinafter referred to as «Service User», as party of the first part, and INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHER
LLC represented by director Shiryaev Sergey Borisovich, acting on the basis of the Statute, hereinafter referred to
as «Service Provider», as party of the second part, collectively referred to as «Parties», have agreed as follows:
1. Subject of the Contract
1.1. The Service Provider undertakes to render the publishing services (scientific journal selection indexed
in Scopus Q3 Percentile 20..39 , and publication of a research paper titled «Entrepreneurial education in the study
of information systems management strategies.» (topic №14, author-place №1 at 123mi.ru) in the journal, the
Service User undertakes to pay for rendered services under the terms and conditions herein.
1.2. The Service Provider guarantees that a scientific paper of the Service User will be indexed in the
database Scopus.
1.3. The Service Provider warrants rendering high-quality services safe for the Service User.
1.4. Service period is within April 2023.
1.5. The Service is fully rendered after the Service User receives an Acceptance Letter from the journal and signs
the Acceptance Certificate.
2. Service Cost and Payment Order
2.1. Total cost of Services rendered by the Service Provider under this Contract is 70520 () RUB.
2.2. Services rendered by the Service Provider shall be non-cash paid by transferring money to the bank account of
the Service Provider
2.3. The receipt, cheque, electronic payment instrument or any other payment document is payment approval. Be
sure to keep the payment document attached to the Contract. Be sure to notify your manager about the payment
and take acknowledgment about payment was received.
3. Rights and Obligations of the Parties
3.1. The Service User has the right to check the progress and quality of rendered services without interfering into
activities performed by the Service Provider, to request information about the progress and status of rendered
services at any time.
3.2. All copyright, intellectual and other rights belong to the Service User.
4. Special Conditions
4.1. Each Party undertakes to maintain complete confidentiality of financial, commercial and other information
received from the other Party. Such information could be transferred to Third Party only under the written consent
of the both Parties, as well as in cases provided by law.
4.2. All disputes, disagreements and claims that may arise between the Parties as result of herein or in connection
with this Contract, its performance, violation, termination or invalidity, shall be resolved judicially unless settled
through negotiations.
4.3. The Parties recognize the legal force of the electronic and scanned versions of this Contract. If necessary, the
Service Provider and the Service User undertake to provide the original Contract.
5. Registered addresses and bank accounts of the Parties
The Service User (Client):
The Service Provider:
INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHER LLC
ООО «Международный издатель»
Registered address: 123317, Russia, Moscow, Presnenskaya Embankment, 8, bldg. 1, 48th Floor, 484C.
Head office address: Russia, Moscow, Moscow City, Presnenskaya Embankment, 6, bldg. 2, 8th Floor.
INN 7703406582, KPP 770301001.
Tinkoff Bank, 1st Volokolamsky pr., 10, bld. 1, Moscow, Russia
Account 40702840910000000690
Transit Account - 40702840020000000690
Bank SWIFT – TICSRUMMXXX
Intermediary JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A. NEW YORK, NY US
Intermediary's Bank SWIFT CHASUS33XXX
Intermediary's Bank Account 464650808
_______________(Shiryaev S. B.)
Source: 123mi.ru
Appendix 2
Number of purchased coauthorship slots by country
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
6
6
6
6
6
7
7
8
8
9
9
11
12
36
106
111
340
542
2715
Colombia
Czechia
Ethiopia
Germany
Indonesia
Italy
Kyrgyzstan
Malaysia
Poland
Sudan
Tadjikistan
Uganda
Australia
Belarus
Canada
Hong Kong
Hungary
Turkey
United States
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Spain
Switzerland
Bulgaria
Kuwait
Egypt
Jordan
Israel
Vietnam
United Kingdom
Uzbekistan
Azerbaijan
UAE
Ukraine
China
Kazakhstan
Russia
Appendix 3
An offer proposal for a special issue in a journal and identification of a special issue
Appendix 4
An offer proposal for a special issue in a journal
Source: 123mi.ru website
Identification of papers in a special issue
