There is a House of Reps inquiry into scientific publishing, just not ours.
It is the United States’s and it is a smack in the chops to those who assume Congress does no real work and is just a perpetual pie-fight.
Chair Brian Babin (R-TX) set out the issues:
- “Publish or perish” creates opportunities for predatory journals and paper mills
- Peer review “standards are inconsistent, transparency is limited and conflicts of interest go undisclosed.”
- “Data sets are often inaccessible, replication studies and undervalued and open access policies and inconsistent.”
And then there is AI. “Without clear oversight, these technologies could amplify the very problems we are trying to solve,” Congressman Babin said.
But “responsible publishers” are on it, J Carl Maxwell from the Association of American Publishers said in his opening statement, “they continue to make massive investments in order to protect research integrity. They deploy plagiarism and image-manipulation detection, AI-generated content checks, and specialized integrity teams. They refine peer-review and editorial processes and support robust systems for corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions.”
And he warned, “treating preprints or other non-reviewed products as functional equivalents of peer-reviewed articles … risks amplifying misinformation and devaluing peer review.”
Maybe, maybe not. Kate Travis from Retraction Watch told the hearing, “for some scientists, achieving publication goals means working harder or more efficiently. For others, it means falsifying or fabricating data. Still others avail themselves of what are known as paper mills.
“Publishers have only recently begun to admit that paper mills are a major problem”, she warned.” “That may be due to the inherent bias toward greater publication volumes, which paper mills can help fuel.”
“Real change will require publishers to acknowledge their role in leveraging publish or perish culture to boost their bottom lines.”
Regulators can help, she said, by watching for research fraud with public money. “The fact that whistleblowers can earn up to 30% of these settlements creates a powerful incentive for those who are typically ignored by institutions.”
In February the NHRMC and ARC announced they, “are working with Universities Australia and the research sector to better understand how Australia’s research integrity system is operating and where it can be strengthened.” FC doubts bounty hunters are on the list.