The recent Retraction Watch report describing the removal of legitimate contributors and the addition of unfamiliar coauthors who “kindly covered” publication fees is unsettling, but not surprising. What makes this case especially instructive is not merely the alleged misconduct itself, but how clearly it exposes a set of structural weaknesses in contemporary scholarly publishing.
At its core, this is not just an authorship dispute. It is a case study in how article processing charges (APCs), reputational incentives, editorial opacity, and weak authorship governance can converge to produce outcomes that are ethically indefensible yet procedurally difficult to prevent.
Authorship as a Transaction, Not a Contribution
The most troubling feature of this case is the apparent reframing of authorship from a record of intellectual contribution into a negotiable asset, one that can be exchanged for funding, access, or institutional advantage.
The idea that authorship might be adjusted because someone “covered the APC” is not merely unethical; it fundamentally undermines the epistemic function of authorship itself. Authorship is meant to communicate responsibility, accountability, and contribution, as articulated in widely accepted guidelines such as the ICMJE authorship criteria.
When authorship becomes a form of currency, the scholarly record no longer reflects how knowledge was produced, only who could afford to appear on it.
This phenomenon is not confined to any single country or institution. APC-driven authorship distortions have been reported globally, particularly in environments where:
Publication volume is directly tied to institutional ranking or career progression
APCs are high relative to local research funding
Editorial scrutiny of contribution statements is minimal
The present case simply makes these dynamics unusually visible.
Contribution Statements: Detailed, Yet Toothless
Ironically, this case includes highly detailed authorship contribution statements, multiple versions of them, in fact. Yet those statements failed to prevent what appears to be a wholesale misrepresentation of scholarly labor.
This raises an uncomfortable question: What value do contribution taxonomies (such as CRediT) really provide if journals do not verify them, audit them, or act decisively when they change dramatically between submissions?
When an author list changes substantially, especially after prior rejections, this should trigger mandatory scrutiny, not passive acceptance. At present, however, most journals treat contribution statements as declarative rather than evidentiary. They are collected, not interrogated.
Editorial Blind Spots and the Limits of Trust
Publishers often emphasize that editors must “trust authors” to describe contributions accurately. Trust is essential, but trust without verification is not governance.
In this case, the published article appears to be nearly identical to an earlier draft that clearly documented the contributions of excluded authors. If accurate, this suggests a failure not just of authorship ethics, but of editorial due diligence despite existing guidance from bodies such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE):
No apparent inquiry into why prior corresponding authors disappeared
No documented explanation for the sudden appearance of new senior authors
No reconciliation of contradictory funding declarations across submissions
These are not subtle discrepancies. They are precisely the kinds of red flags that editorial systems should be designed to detect.
Metric Pressure and the Manufacturing of Legitimacy
The institutional backdrop matters. The repeated appearance of the same actors in prior investigations into metric manipulation suggests a deeper problem: the industrialization of publication output as a ranking strategy.
When institutions reward volume over validity, and when journals prioritize throughput over provenance, misconduct becomes less an aberration and more a rational adaptation to incentives.
This does not absolve individuals of responsibility, but it does explain why apologies, retractions, and “misunderstandings” recur without meaningful reform.
Retraction as a Necessary—but Insufficient—Response
The request for retraction in this case is reasonable and likely justified. Yet retraction alone is a blunt instrument. It corrects the record after harm is done, but it does little to prevent recurrence.
If publishers want to treat cases like this as more than isolated scandals, several systemic reforms deserve serious consideration:
Mandatory authorship-change disclosures between submissions, with written justification
Independent confirmation from all listed and removed authors at the acceptance stage
Funding–authorship firewall policies, explicitly prohibiting APC payment as a basis for authorship
Editorial access to prior submission histories, especially when manuscripts migrate between journals
Sanctions beyond retraction, including temporary submission bans for repeat offenders
None of these measures is radical. All are technically feasible. What has been lacking is institutional will.
A Final Reflection
This case is uncomfortable precisely because it challenges a comforting narrative: that misconduct is rare, accidental, or confined to bad actors. In reality, it often emerges where systems are permissive, incentives are misaligned, and accountability is diffuse.
If the scholarly community wishes to preserve trust in the research record, it must confront a difficult truth: integrity failures are no longer primarily about individual ethics; they are about system design.
And systems, unlike apologies, can be fixed.
Keywords
Research integrity
Authorship ethics
Article processing charges (APCs)
Gift authorship
Publication ethics
Editorial governance
CRediT taxonomy
Metric-driven publishing
Scholarly misconduct
Open-access publishing
Retractions
Institutional incentives
Accountability in research
Authorship manipulation
Muhammad Sarwar
With more than two decades of leadership in scholarly publishing and scientific communication, Muhammad Sarwar has been instrumental in advancing research dissemination across Asia. As Secretary & Treasurer of the Asian Council of Science Editors (ACSE), he has played a pivotal role in promoting editorial excellence, publication ethics, and professional development within the scientific community.
He is also a founding member of Open Science Asia, an initiative dedicated to advancing open-access publishing and empowering researchers and institutions to share knowledge freely and responsibly.
In addition to his leadership at ACSE, Muhammad heads IndexONE, an abstracting and citation database that provides indexing solutions for both well-established non-indexed and emerging journals—helping them enhance visibility, credibility, and global reach. His leadership reflects a deep commitment to supporting sustainable scholarly communication and strengthening publishing infrastructures in developing regions.
With a strong background in editorial management, publishing operations, and research ethics, Muhammad continues to serve as a guiding force in the Asian publishing community, driving integrity, innovation, and inclusivity in scholarly communication.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of their affiliated institutions, the Asian Council of Science Editors (ACSE), or the Editor’s Café editorial team.
Comments
Dr Bello RS
29 December, 2025
Dr Mohammed Sarwar captured succinctly the ugly plague of authorship for APC syndrome rocking scholarly publishing, especially in the global south where the doctrine of publish or perish held sway.
Most co-authors don't make any inputs in such articles, but even strives for lead authorship simply because they are the sole sponsor. This unethical practice is often promoted by the high APCs charged by Green journals and other high impact journals. This often erode the credibility and visibility of good research articles.
It's time for the authorities of publishing ecosystem to begin to pay attention to these unethical practices and see to possibility of gradually cutting down on beyond-reach APCs such that authorship merchandise will stop.
Md. Abdul Karim
29 December, 2025
I become very happy to know about Mr. Muhammad Sarwar, Secretary & Treasurer of ACSE for his outstanding contribution to make a single platform of scientific publication communities. I also happy for being a part of that. Thank you.
Abdelazim Negm
29 December, 2025
Thank you so much for this interesting perspective on authorship misconduct. Your analysis of "authorship currency" highlights a systemic flaw in academic publishing that extends beyond individual misconduct. It correctly identifies authorship as a negotiable commodity, but we must also confront how publisher incentives enable this practice.
The Article Processing Charge (APC) model pays journals for publication volume, turning every rejection into lost income. This inherent conflict discourages rigorous scrutiny. Investigating authorship demands time and resources, and for many journals, challenging a fee-paying author jeopardizes the transaction itself.
Trust has now become a vulnerability. By accepting contribution statements as declarations rather than verified evidence, journals enable paper mills. When a senior author appears only upon mention of payment, the editorial process must halt.
To rebuild integrity, at least two additional concrete reforms are essential:
a) Financial Firewall: APC processing must be managed by a department completely independent of editorial staff. Editors should not know who submitted the payment (APC).
b) Provenance Audit: Any change to the corresponding author must be treated as a major or significant revision, triggering a full re-verification of the manuscript’s development history.
Integrity does not arise from intention alone, but from deliberately rigorous systems. Continuing to prioritize output over origin is not the publication of science; it is the sale of prestige.
David Popoola
29 December, 2025
It is a huge menace.
Quality and highly innovative Researching is a time consuming commitment, and it apparently becomes a trade-off with other competitive sustenance- livelihood financing avenues.
Authorship transaction on one side is an escape route when due regularization for remuneration for intense researchers are delayed, or denied owing to systemic structural failure.
But passion and discipline alone cannot do, unless there is a sustainable reward system otherwise, innovation becomes outrightly endangered for many.
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Dr Bello RS
29 December, 2025Dr Mohammed Sarwar captured succinctly the ugly plague of authorship for APC syndrome rocking scholarly publishing, especially in the global south where the doctrine of publish or perish held sway.
Most co-authors don't make any inputs in such articles, but even strives for lead authorship simply because they are the sole sponsor. This unethical practice is often promoted by the high APCs charged by Green journals and other high impact journals. This often erode the credibility and visibility of good research articles.
It's time for the authorities of publishing ecosystem to begin to pay attention to these unethical practices and see to possibility of gradually cutting down on beyond-reach APCs such that authorship merchandise will stop.