Elsevier investigates hundreds of peer reviewers for manipulating citations

Andy

Andy

Retired committee member
The Dutch publisher Elsevier is investigating hundreds of researchers whom it suspects of deliberately manipulating the peer-review process to boost their own citation numbers.

The publisher is looking into the possibility that some peer reviewers are encouraging the authors of work under review to cite the reviewers’ own research in exchange for positive reviews — a frowned-on practice broadly termed coercive citation.

Elsevier’s probe has also revealed that several of these reviewers seem to be engaging in other questionable publishing practices in studies that they have themselves authored. The Elsevier analysts who uncovered the activity told Nature that they “discovered clear evidence of peer-review manipulation” and of academics publishing the same studies more than once. Elsevier said that their investigations will lead to some of these studies being retracted.

But it said it won’t be necessary to retract any studies found to be affected by coercive citation because the authors aren’t responsible for the problem, and citation manipulation doesn’t affect the research.
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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02639-9
 
Why don't they remove the citations and blacklist the reviewers?

This practice has been going on ever since I have been in science. The easiest way to tell who has reviewed your paper is by what papers they require you to cite in order to satisfy their comments. It happened to me a couple of weeks ago. It happens all the time. If publishers have just woken up to this...
 
Trish said:
What can the papers' authors do when that happens? If they refuse to cite the papers, does the reviewer put in a bad review? It sounds like blackmail.
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It is blackmail. If you refuse to cite a paper the reviewer just says he thinks that changes are not adequate and recommends rejection. A good editor can keep tabs on that sort of behaviour but the author has no way of knowing whose side the editor is on.

I am now lucky that my salary does not depend on publishing so last time around I just said that I could not see any point in citing the papers I was told I should cite. I explained why they did not alter our position and also suggested that they might not be representative of the field. The reviewer is likely to have been cross, but the editor is quite likely to have been on my side since I am an unpaid book review editor for his journal!!
 
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