An international publisher has retracted 107 research papers by Chinese authors, after finding out that the reports had been “compromised.”
The articles were published by the Springer Nature publishing company in the journal Tumor Biology, between 2012 and 2016.
The publisher said it found that the papers, which are required to be peer-reviewed, had been submitted to reviewers who had fake email addresses.
“We are retracting these published papers because the peer review process required for publication in our journals had been deliberately compromised by fabricated peer reviewer reports,” Springer Nature said in a statement on RetractionWatch.com.
The articles were submitted with the names of real researchers, but fabricated email addresses, Peter Butler, editorial director at Springer Nature for cell biology and biochemistry, was quoted in a report by state-run China Daily.
After investigating and following up with the real reviewers, the latters confirmed to Springer Nature that they did not do the peer review.
The authors involved in the incident all hail from Chinese organisations, with a large majority of the articles involving research in the field of cancer.
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