In recent years, the Western scientific research field has begun to pay attention to Chinese researchers who have submitted fraudulent research papers and the growing industrialized cheating activities in China. On March 23, the British Nature magazine published a feature article, disclosing the problem that many journal publishers are facing. An increasing amount of falsified research papers are produced through the activities of paper-mills or, as the article describes it, “Companies that churn out fake scientific manuscripts to order.” The article mentioned that, in the past 20 years, the number of papers produced through the activity of paper-mills and which come from Chinese hospitals has increased substantially by about 50 times .
A Wall Street Journal article from July 2020 also exposed over 100 research papers by researchers at Chinese hospitals and research intuitions which were linked to paper-mills activity.
According to Nature, since January 2020, independent investigators and various journals have flagged more than 1,000 research papers, whose authors include those from Chinese hospitals, may be related to paper-mills. Meanwhile Nature’s statistics showed that since January 2020, there have been 370 retracted paper-mills alleged articles came from Chinese hospitals. Publishers have added expressions of concern to another 45 such articles. Nature further identified additional 197 retracted papers from Chinese hospitals have contains identical images.
The reason for Chinese doctors who turned to ghostwriter for research papers was because they need the paper for career advancement and promotion, but they don’t have time to write it. Nature quoted two Chinese researchers who expressed frustration that the professional journal publishing is so bad in China that no one believe or reference studies from them. Now people use paper mills for their research papers which also affects China’s reputation globally.
Source:
1. Radio Free Asia, March 24, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/kejiaowen/hj-03242021141835.html
2. Nature, March 23, 2021
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00733-5