Journal retracts 80 papers ID’d as paper mill products following sleuth’s report, Undark-Retraction Watch investigation

Nearly two years after being warned one of its journals appeared to be the target of a paper mill operation, Taylor & Francis has retracted 80 articles that appeared in that journal.

Last June, Undark and Retraction Watch reported on the efforts of a sleuth using the name Aishwarya Swaminathan to alert Taylor & Francis and other publishers starting in April 2022 that a data scientist named Gunasekaran Manogaran allegedly runs “a research paper publishing scam” that targets special issues. Such issues appear to be particularly vulnerable to paper mills.

Another sleuth, Nick Wise, also worked to suss out the problems, and El Pais reported on the links between Manogaran and a professor in Spain in October.

Now, Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section B — Soil & Plant Science has retracted 80 papers, all with a notice that specifies the name of the relevant special issue:

This article has been retracted from publication in the Taylor & Francis journal, Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section B — Soil & Plant Science.

Following publication, concerns were raised by multiple third-parties around the content of the special issue and the decision-making process.

Following an investigation by the Taylor & Francis Publishing Ethics & Integrity team in full cooperation with the Editor-in-Chief, it was confirmed that this article included in Special Issue titled “Envisage Computer Modelling and Statistics for Agriculture”, guest edited by Gunasekaran Manogaran was not peer-reviewed appropriately, in line with the Journal’s peer review standards and policy.

As the stringency of the peer review process is core to the integrity of the publication process, the Editor and Publisher have decided to retract all of the articles within the above-named Special Issue.

The journal has not confirmed if the authors were aware of this compromised peer review process.

The journal is committed to correcting the scientific record and will fully cooperate with any institutional investigations into this matter. The authors have been informed of this decision.

We have been informed in our decision-making by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines.

Manogaran, who has at least 14 retractions of his own papers, did not respond to a request for comment.

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