Scholars from Zhejiang University Beihang and other institutions have withdrawn more than 30 articles from foreign journals: forged peer review
Due to the problem of "academic misconduct", the domestic academic circle ushered in another "earthquake" of a large scale.
In April of this year, the internationally renowned academic publishing group Springer's journal Multimedia Tools and Applications cancelled 33 papers in batches, plus another 8 papers withdrawn by the journal in the past two years, a total of 41 papers, 39 The main author of this paper is from China.
Reasons for retracting include duplicating from an unpublished manuscript, authorship manipulation, an attempt to subvert the peer review process, and content overlap most notably with the article cited), image duplication without appropriate permission (figure duplication without appropriate permission). More than half of the paper authors agreed to withdraw.
According to preliminary statistics from Peng Mei News (www.thepaper.cn), this collective revocation of papers involved dozens of domestic universities, units and companies, including Zhejiang University, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, China Jiliang University, etc. There are no shortage of papers that have received funding from projects including the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
The top three institutions with the most "off the shelf" papers are State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Company, Changzhou Institute of Technology, School of Electrical and Optoelectronic Engineering, and Hefei University of Technology. Of the 7 papers, State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Company and Hefei University of Technology also had four papers with the same corresponding author retracted.
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Surging news statistics found that among the dozens of colleges, units and companies affected by this collective withdrawal, State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Company (including State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Research Institute, State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Company) (Information and Communication Branch, etc.), Changzhou Institute of Technology, School of Electrical and Optoelectronic Engineering, Hefei University of Technology are the most mentioned college units, with 12, 7, and 4 papers respectively being removed, and another 3 are State Grid Zhejiang Article of the cooperation between Provincial Electric Power Company and Hefei University of Technology.
State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Company has become the most retracted unit. The pictures in this article were compiled and translated by surging news reporter Wu Yi and intern Lin Haiyi. Data source: Springer's official website. It is worth noting that the seven papers withdrawn by the School of Electrical and Optoelectronic Engineering of Changzhou Institute of Technology all came from the same corresponding author "Chao Xiong". The Multimedia Tools and Applications Journal pointed out that these seven retracted papers all plagiarized unpublished manuscripts, and four of them manipulated the identity of authors and attempted to subvert the peer review publishing system.
7 papers withdrawn by Changzhou Institute of Technology, School of Electrical and Optoelectronic Engineering.
It is worth noting that these papers are marked with the support of multiple project funds, including the “333 High-level Talent Training Project” research project of Jiangsu Province (BRA2016111), the key research and development plan of Jiangsu Province (BE2016200), and the technology project of Changzhou City (CE20175031) ), Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Electronic Information Testing Technology (relying on the 41st Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation) (YFKM-WHH-201705-01), Changzhou Key Laboratory of High Technology Research (CM20173003), Jiangsu Provincial colleges and universities key laboratory construction project.
The seven papers were withdrawn at different times, with four papers in April this year and three papers in June 2018. Corresponding author Chao Xiong only agreed to withdraw 5 of them and opposed the withdrawal of the other 2. The remaining authors of the paper did not respond to this matter.
The surging news search found that "Chao Xiong" is actually Xiong Chao, the former deputy dean of the School of Electrical and Optoelectronic Engineering of Changzhou Institute of Technology. The “Teacher List” and “Talent Project” columns of the old official website of the college show that Xiong Chao was selected as the “333” high-level talent training project of Jiangsu Province in 2016, and became the young and middle-aged academic leader of the Qinglan Project of Jiangsu Province in 2017.
In the school's new official website for the past two years, the School of Electrical and Optoelectronic Engineering of Changzhou Institute of Technology was split into the School of Electrical Information Engineering and the School of Optoelectronic Engineering. Xiong Chao did not appear on the leadership list.
Surging News contacted Xiong Chao about the above paper revocation, and the other party responded, "Agreeing to withdraw the manuscript indicates that I agree with the issue of the journal (proposed), and the relevant funds have been withdrawn."
Of these 7 papers withdrawn, 3 of them were cooperated by the School of Electrical and Optoelectronic Engineering of Changzhou Institute of Technology and the 41st Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation. The company's official website shows that the 41st Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (referred to as "41") is the only professional electronic measuring instrument research institute in China. The headquarters is located in Bengbu High-tech Industrial Development Zone, Anhui Province. So far, 41 institutes have completed nearly 400 scientific research achievements, 4 of which have won national awards, and more than 100 have won ministerial and provincial scientific and technological progress awards.
Most "off shelf" papers come from the same special issue
In addition to the above 7 papers withdrawn by the School of Electrical and Optoelectronic Engineering of Changzhou Institute of Technology, the corresponding author "Zepeng Wang" from the School of Computer and Information Technology of Hefei University of Technology was also withdrawn by 4 papers, mainly for plagiarism and unpublishing Manuscripts, manipulation of authorship, and attempts to subvert the peer review publication system.
In addition, the author of the paper "Caiyou Zhang" from the State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Company Information and Communication Branch has also withdrawn four papers. The reasons for the withdrawal are mainly plagiarism, manipulation of authorship, and attempts to subvert the peer review publishing system.
It is worth noting that the surging news search found that there are multiple submissions of these four papers with "Caiyou Zhang" as the corresponding author. These four papers were also published in the Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation of Elsevier, another internationally renowned academic publishing group, from 2018 to 2019, but they were all withdrawn.
However, in the author column of these four papers, only one appeared with the name "Caiyou Zhang". Corresponding authors of two other articles have also become "BoDai" of the Information and Communication Branch of State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Company.
Springer's official website shows that most of the papers withdrawn from this collective come from the special issue "Multi-source Weak Data Management using Big Data", which is a special issue organized by the journal.
Coincidentally, the guest editors of this special issue are from State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Company Information & Telecommunications Branch, Hefei University of Technology, Alibaba Complex Alibaba Research Center for Complexity Sciences, Tianjin University, National University of Singapore. The two papers withdrawn by the National University of Singapore have cooperated with the State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Company Information and Communication Branch.
List of guest editors of "Multi-source Weak Data Management using Big Data" special issue.
Regarding the role of guest editors in the special issue of this issue and the findings of the manuscript withdrawal, the surging news email contacted the editor-in-chief of Multimedia Tools and Applications. As of the time of publication, no specific reply has been received.
It is worth noting that the reasons for the withdrawal of many papers all mention "subversion of the peer review publication system". How can this be understood? According to the public information, Surging News learned that peer review is a paper review system generally adopted by academic journals. Generally, the editor of the journal invites experts and scholars in the field of the paper to evaluate the quality of the paper, put forward comments on the revision of the review, and the editor-in-chief decides whether to publish it after referring to the results of the review.
Retraction Watch, a website created by two foreign scientists, shows that the reasons for papers being withdrawn usually include falsification of peer review, which refers to deliberately not performing peer review in accordance with journal guidelines or ethical standards.
In 2017, the China Association for Science and Technology formulated the "Regulations on the Self-discipline of Moral Behaviors of Science and Technology Workers." It is mentioned that it is opposed to commissioning and writing papers. Follow the rules for writing and publishing papers, oppose the use of crude and low-level repetitive papers to occupy and waste academic resources, and jointly resist the misconduct of third-party intermediaries in the publication of academic papers to opportunistically seek for profits, and oppose the commission of "third parties" to write investment papers, Substantially modify the content of the paper, provide false peer reviewer information or review opinions, maintain the social image and academic dignity of Chinese science and technology workers, and enhance the international reputation of Chinese scientists.
Many papers withdrawn were funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
Surging News found that many of the papers that were withdrawn this time were funded by projects including the National Natural Science Foundation. The authors are mainly from Zhejiang University, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Hefei University of Technology, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Huazhong Normal University University, China Jiliang University, National Digital Switching System Engineering Technology Research Center.
Except that the authors of the papers of Zhejiang University did not respond, all others agreed to withdraw the manuscript.
Mark the list of retracted papers that include funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Six days ago, Peng Mei News contacted the corresponding author “Liye Gui” of the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics of Zhejiang University and the “Yongjun Zheng” author of the paper of the School of Metrology and Test Engineering of China Jiliang University regarding the above-mentioned withdrawal. Respond.
What about the dismissed papers funded by the fund? On May 6, the relevant staff of the National Natural Science Foundation of China Scientific Research Integrity Construction Office responded to the surging news and said that the Propaganda Department will respond to the media in a unified manner. The relevant staff of the Publicity Department said that we have not received the situation in this regard (report), and we need to report the detailed content to the leader and make a formal response.
This is not Springer's first "off the shelf" issue paper. According to the Beijing Youth Daily, in August 2015, Springer Publishing Group withdrew 64 papers published in its 10 academic journals, most of which came from China.
In April 2017, Springer Publishing Group's "Oncology Biology" magazine withdrew 107 Chinese scholars' papers at one time because of peer review fraud. This is hailed as a "big earthquake" in the domestic academic circle.
On August 24 of the same year, the State Council Information Office held a press conference. At that time, Yang Wei, the director of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, said that there were two main ways to deal with this problem: the first is that if the paper is found to have academic misconduct, Withdrawal of manuscripts or other actions, and marked with the support of the National Natural Science Foundation, this work must be dealt with. The second is that these retracted papers are used as a basis to apply for the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
In response to the Springer Publishing Group paper “Retraction of Manuscripts” in 2017, Yang Wei revealed at that time that there were probably a total of more than 70 relevant responsible persons who notified and criticized and disqualified the 50 natural persons from applying for the National Natural Science Foundation of China 1 By 7 years, more than 40 projects of the National Natural Science Foundation that have received funding will be cancelled. "Serious handling of these matters will play an important and crucial role in preventing this type of academic misconduct."
With the advent of the 2020 Science Fund project review season, the “Open Letter on Strengthening the Construction of Work Style and Study Style and Creating a Positive Review Environment” issued by the National Natural Science Foundation of China on April 27 stated that the review experts are independent, objective and fair Carry out the evaluation work in a localized manner, resist all kinds of human evaluations, do not cast emotional votes, unit votes, interest votes, contact the stakeholders of the project under review, do not disclose any undisclosed information related to the review, and do not accept any unit With personal requests, resolutely resist any bad behavior that interferes with the normal review work, and consciously avoid conflicts of interest.
Surging News Reporter Wu Yi Intern Lin Haiyi