According to the news released by Wuhan University, Shandong University, Henan University of Finance and other universities, since 2023, foreign publishing institutions such as Hindawi have withdrawn a large number of Chinese scholars' publications, which has had a negative impact on China's academic reputation and academic environment. The Department of Science, Technology and Information Technology of the Ministry of Education has recently issued a notice to decide to carry out self-examination of retractions in various universities.
In recent years, it has been common for Chinese scholars to be retracted for publication in academic journals. It is by no means normal for the published manuscripts to be retracted, and some of the manuscripts have been retracted in batches, which not only shocks the academic community, but also surprises the public. What is the reason for the retraction?Is there academic misconduct in it?Should the author accept any other treatment than retraction?These issues need to be further clarified in order to straighten out the academic atmosphere and maintain a healthy academic order.
In 2017, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education and other five departments announced the results of the investigation and handling of the centralized retraction of Tumor Biology: a total of 521 authors were involved in the 107 retracted papers**, of which 486 were at fault to varying degrees. At that time, the units of the authors involved made a decision to cancel the qualifications of the responsible persons to undertake science and technology plans (special, **, etc.) projects within a certain period of time, promote job titles, recover the funds of the science and technology plans (special, **, etc.) projects they undertook, and revoke the scientific and technological awards, academic awards, honorary titles, etc. The Chinese Academy of Engineering suspended the candidacy of one of the authors involved. With great concern from the society, this retraction incident was finally thoroughly investigated, which shows the firm determination of the relevant departments to severely punish academic misconduct.
Academic ** has been retracted, and it cannot be "withdrawn all at once". It is necessary to specifically analyze the reasons for the retraction, whether it is the subjective fault of the author or the objective defect of the author. According to Nature, the number of retractions in academic journals worldwide exceeded 10,000 in 2023. Some of these retracted manuscripts have problems such as plagiarism, forgery, tampering, and improper signature, and some even if the above situations do not exist, there are also procedural problems such as improper publication process and peer review fraud. Of course, there are also some ** authors who take the initiative to retract the manuscript after discovering the problem, which reflects the researcher's scientific research attitude of seeking truth from facts.
*After the retraction, it is necessary to eliminate the adverse effects caused during the publication period. Some of them have been published for many years from publication to retraction, during which the authors have enjoyed improper benefits arising from publication, such as scientific research performance evaluation, professional title evaluation, project funding application, academic honors, etc. Only by depriving these illegitimate interests can the fairness of academic competition be maintained. Some retractions will also be cited by other researchers, in this regard, it is necessary to objectively analyze the impact of retractions on others, and eliminate the misleading of unqualified academic research.
The purpose of carrying out the retraction investigation is to verify the specific reasons for the retraction, clarify the attribution of responsibility, and eliminate the negative impact of the retraction. In the long run, it is also to reverse the undesirable tendencies of focusing on quantity over quality in scientific research work, and establish a more fair and reasonable scientific research evaluation system. Academic institutions should form institutionalized procedures for dealing with retracted manuscripts as an important part of the academic evaluation system.
It is worth noting that although some publishing institutions have the title of "international journals", there are problems such as chaotic management, low level of publication, and lax control, and some centralized retractions are often published in such publications. In this regard, when carrying out academic evaluation, it is necessary to evaluate the role of research results in related research fields more comprehensively than just the publication of the first grade. For publications and publishing platforms that frequently retract their manuscripts, they should also be removed from the list of journals related to scientific research evaluation in a timely manner, and the "water journals" that publish shoddy and shoddy articles all year round should be put into the "blacklist".
This time, all universities carried out the self-examination of retraction, and they all mentioned that they should study the establishment of a long-term mechanism to further improve the classification evaluation and assessment ecology oriented by scientific research quality, scientific research performance, and scientific research contribution. The majority of researchers cannot take publication as the ultimate goal of scientific research, but to do real learning, real innovation, and real scientific research contributions as a lifelong pursuit.
*: China Youth Daily).