Related preprint:
Liu, Yue, The Paradox of Academic Publishing: Why Low-Quality Research Thrives While Disruptive Innovation Struggles, Qeios, Preprint, 2025, https://doi.org/10.32388/QD8GGF
Why Low-Quality Articles Are So Prevalent: An Academic System Under Strain
Yue Liu
College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang, P. R. China,110034, yueliusd@163.com
The academic publishing landscape today is flooded with substandard research, creating a crisis that undermines scientific integrity and perpetuates systemic inequalities. This proliferation of "junk science" isn't simply the result of individual shortcomings—it's the product of a deeply flawed system that rewards quantity over quality and privileges connections over merit.
Introduction
There is a common misconception that researchers from third-tier institutions are responsible for producing low-quality work that pollutes the academic landscape, while prestigious journals are assumed to publish only high-quality research, with substandard articles relegated to lower-tier publications. This perception is fundamentally flawed. In reality, the contamination of academia with junk science is primarily driven by top-tier journals and elite institutions. Lower-tier publications lack the influence and reach of prestigious journals, meaning their poor-quality articles have far less impact on the academic ecosystem. Elite institutions, equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and advanced instrumentation, are paradoxically positioned to produce the most convincing yet fundamentally flawed research. When garbage research is dressed up with sophisticated equipment and polished data presentation, it becomes far more likely to pass peer review at high-impact journals, creating a dangerous cycle where the most influential platforms become vehicles for academic misconduct.
Genuine scholars who have solved real academic problems and published meaningful work often approach job interviews with humility, unable to guarantee future publication output because they understand that innovation cannot be manufactured on demand. These authentic researchers typically lack the extensive networks and insider connections that facilitate easy publication, viewing their continued discoveries as fortunate rather than inevitable. In stark contrast, academic pseudo-elites confidently promise specific numbers of future publications, grants, and funding amounts during job applications. Their confidence stems not from superior research ability but from their extensive networks and relationship capital, which enable them to transform routine experimental data into fabricated innovation points and secure publication in prestigious journals through connections rather than merit. This networking advantage creates a self-perpetuating system where those with the strongest social capital, rather than the most rigorous scientific minds, dominate the academic publishing landscape.
The "Publish or Perish" Crisis Driving Poor Research
The fundamental driver behind the explosion of low-quality articles is the entrenched "publish or perish" mentality that has dominated academia for decades. Universities and research institutions use publication rates as primary indicators of research productivity, with the Times Higher Education Index assigning 60% of its score to research outputs. This creates an unsustainable environment where career advancement depends not on the quality or impact of discoveries, but on the sheer volume of publications.[1, 2, 3, 4]
The statistics paint a stark picture of this crisis. In 2023 alone, more than 10,000 research papers were retracted globally—a new record that represents a 23% annual growth rate in retractions over the past decade. Nearly half of these retractions were due to data authenticity issues, while 16% involved plagiarism. This surge in fraudulent research directly correlates with the increasing pressure on academics to maintain constant publication streams.[4, 5]
The pressure has become so intense that it's affecting research quality across disciplines. A 2022-2023 survey of medical residents at tertiary hospitals in southwest China revealed that 46.7% of respondents self-reported buying and selling papers, letting others write papers for them, or writing papers for others. Some publishers now report that up to one in seven submissions are of probable "paper mill provenance".[6]
The Networking Advantage: How Elite Institutions Dominate
The academic publishing system is fundamentally skewed toward researchers at prestigious institutions, who possess significant networking advantages that enable them to produce and publish articles with far greater ease than their peers at lesser-known universities. Research analyzing over 78,000 faculty across 25 scientific disciplines reveals that faculty at elite institutions are roughly twice as productive as researchers at the least prestigious institutions.[7]
This productivity gap isn't due to superior research skills or insights—it's driven by what researchers call a "substantial labor advantage". Elite institutions receive far more funding, which translates into larger research groups, more graduate students, and increased collaborative opportunities. Faculty at prestigious universities benefit from extensive professional networks that facilitate coauthorship, provide access to resources, and expedite the publication process.[7]
The networking effect extends beyond research collaboration. Studies show that recommendation letters from prestigious institutions carry significantly more weight in academic evaluations. The prestige of the institution a letter writer represents is heavily weighted in hiring and tenure decisions, creating a self-perpetuating cycle where elite academic credentials continue to open doors while researchers from lesser-known institutions face systemic disadvantages.[8]
Geographic and Economic Barriers to Quality Research
The global academic publishing system exhibits severe geographic bias that contributes to the proliferation of low-quality research. Academic publishing remains dominated by Western Europe and North America, where major publishers and citation databases are based. This creates multiple barriers for researchers in developing countries, who face obstacles including lack of funding, limited networking opportunities, language barriers, and discriminatory editorial practices.[9, 10, 11]
Researchers from the Global South encounter significant structural disadvantages. They often lack access to expensive journal subscriptions, face article processing charges (APCs) ranging from $1,500 to $11,000 for open-access publication, and struggle with English proficiency requirements that favor native speakers. Editorial boards at major journals remain predominantly Western, creating implicit biases against research from developing regions. [9, 11, 12]
These barriers force many researchers in developing countries to turn to predatory journals or engage with questionable publishing practices. The result is a two-tier system where well-funded researchers at elite Western institutions can easily publish in prestigious venues, while equally qualified researchers elsewhere resort to lower-quality outlets or unethical practices to meet career requirements.
The Rise of Industrial-Scale Research Fraud
Perhaps most alarming is the emergence of organized research fraud networks that operate at industrial scale. Recent investigations have uncovered sophisticated global networks involving "paper mills," brokers, and compromised journals that systematically manipulate the publication process. These operations function essentially as criminal organizations, with millions of dollars flowing through networks that produce fake research for profit. [6,13]
These fraudulent networks employ several strategies to evade detection. They use brokers who serve as intermediaries to enable mass publication of fraudulent papers in compromised journals. They hijack defunct journals, taking over their names and websites to lend credibility to fraudulent publications. They concentrate their activities in specific vulnerable subfields while avoiding closely related areas that might have stronger oversight mechanisms.[13]
The scale of this fraud is staggering. Analysis of over five million scientific papers across more than 70,000 journals reveals that fraudulent publications are growing at a rate far exceeding legitimate research. China, which leads the world in research output, also has the highest global retraction rate, exceeding 20 per 10,000 articles. The Chinese government has launched a nationwide investigation into research misconduct, requiring universities to compile comprehensive lists of all retracted articles from the past three years.[5, 6]
The Predatory Publishing Ecosystem
The proliferation of predatory journals has created an ecosystem where low-quality research can find publication outlet. Predatory publishers prioritize self-interest over scholarship, characterized by false information, lack of transparency, and aggressive solicitation.[14, 15]
The number of predatory journals now exceeds 15,000 globally, creating thousands of venues where substandard research can appear legitimate. These publications deliberately mimic established journals, use fake editorial boards, and make misleading claims about their indexing status. Busy researchers may inadvertently submit to these journals, while others knowingly use them to inflate their publication records.[14, 15,16]
The consequences extend beyond individual careers. Poor-quality articles from established journals are picked up by mainstream media and presented as legitimate science, spreading unproven theories and misinformation to the public. This undermines scientific credibility and makes it increasingly difficult for non-experts to distinguish reliable research from "junk science."[17]
Systemic Solutions for a Broken System
The prevalence of low-quality articles reflects fundamental problems in how academic success is measured and rewarded. The current system incentivizes rapid publication over rigorous research, networking over merit, and institutional prestige over scientific contribution. Until these underlying issues are addressed, the flood of substandard research will continue to grow.
Reform efforts must focus on changing evaluation criteria to emphasize research quality rather than publication quantity. Investment in research infrastructure and support for international collaboration can help address geographic inequalities in academic publishing.
Most importantly, the academic community must recognize that the proliferation of low-quality articles isn't a byproduct of increased research output—it's a symptom of a system that has lost sight of its fundamental purpose: advancing human knowledge through rigorous, ethical scientific inquiry. Without substantial reforms, the scientific literature risks becoming, as one researcher warned, "completely poisoned" by the very incentive structures meant to promote scholarly achievement.[18]
The abundance of low-quality research articles today represents not just individual failures of integrity, but the inevitable outcome of a system that rewards the wrong behaviors and perpetuates inequality. Only by acknowledging these systemic problems and implementing comprehensive reforms can the academic community restore the integrity and quality that science demands. [19]
https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-3589443-1497148.html
为什么低质量文章比颠覆性创新成果更容易发表
References
1. Strengthening and expanding access to scholarly publishing, 2025, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2025/04-05/scholarly-publishing-peer-review
2. Publish or Perish Paradox, 2021, https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/education/publish-or-perish-paradox
3. The ‘publish or perish’ mentality is undermining science, 2024, https://www.uts.edu.au/news/2024/09/publish-or-perish-mentality-undermining-science
4. The ‘publish or perish’ mentality is fuelling research paper retractions – and undermining science, 2024, https://council.science/blog/publish-or-perish-mentality/
5. Zahra Khan, China conducts nationwide audit of research misconduct after thousands of papers retracted last year, 2024, https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/china-conducts-nationwide-audit-of-research-misconduct-after-thousands-of-papers-retracted/4018981.article
6. The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2420092122
7. Labor advantages drive the greater productivity of faculty at elite universities, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abq7056
8. The Class Gap in Career Progression: Evidence from US academia, 2024, https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/07/the-class-gap-in-academic-career-progression.html
9. Obstacles that Southern Researchers Face in Publishing in Economics Journals, and Why the Research Community Should Care, 2022, https://www.econbiz.de/Record/obstacles-that-southern-researchers-face-in-publishing-in-economics-journals-and-why-the-research-community-should-care-kassouf-ana-l%C3%BAcia/10014292868
10. How to address the geographical bias in academic publishing, 2023, https://gh.bmj.com/content/8/12/e013111
11. How to address the geographical bias in academic publishing, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2023-013111
12. Racially biased academic publishing in need of decolonization, 2021, https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210616193333516
13. Organized scientific fraud is growing at an alarming rate, 2025, https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1093143
14. Predatory journals: how to avoid being prey? 2022, https://royalsociety.org/blog/2022/09/research-integrity/
15. What is a Predatory Journal,
https://www.predatoryjournals.org
16. Predatory Journals: What They Are and How to Avoid Them, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1177/0192623320920209
17. Where to Publish Your Research, https://mcw.libguides.com/c.php?g=913436&p=8259376
18. Global fraud networks are flooding science journals with fake studies, https://www.earth.com/news/global-fraud-networks-are-flooding-science-journals-with-fake-studies/
19. The Paradox of Academic Publishing: Why Low-Quality Research Thrives While Disruptive Innovation Struggles, https://doi.org/10.32388/QD8GGF
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Preprint: The Paradox of Academic Publishing
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https://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=41701&do=blog&id=1496139#comment_5560929
大学生就是学习知识的，能做出有创新的论文是凤毛麟角。但是很多本科学生都能发表国际SCI论文，怀疑这些论文的创新是真的还是假的。
普遍认为硕士博士是搞研究的，发表论文理所应当。但是那么多硕士博士，每个人毕业都要有几篇SCI论文，怀疑这些大量的SCI论文中垃圾和造假的论文的比列有多少。
这些问题没有人问、没有人敢问、更没有人去认真研究。
现在硕士博士就是进实验室做实验搞“创新”。实际上创新可遇不可求，能做出真创新的能有5%就很了不起了。
现在硕士博士的课程是为了应付要求而设的，基本没有实质性的重视。
严格科学的教育体制应该是硕士和博士的理论水平必须上一个台阶，创新是锦上添花的事，可以没有。
实际情况恰恰相反，硕士博士提升了理论水平的凤毛麟角，SCI创新论文每个人都有几篇
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https://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=41701&do=blog&id=1496139#comment_5560965
现代科学界问题很大。这不是哪一个国家的问题，是整个国际学术界的问题。
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202507.2515/v1
Yue Liu, The Reluctance to Criticize the Errors of the Majority: Authority, Conformity, and Academic Silence in Scholarly Discourse, Preprints.org, preprint, 2025, DOI:10.20944/preprints202507.2515.v1
垃圾文章和造假文章越来越多，因此获得利益的人越来越多，所以问题似滚雪球一样，越来越严重。
学术圈某种意义上像是个派系林立的“江湖”，学术权威如同“教主”一样，普通学者没有力量反抗其观点。
随着发表的错误论文越来越多，跟风研究的越来越多，大家都成了既得利益者，就默许了这些错误的观点继续流传下去。
———— 科技日报，2018-10-18 第01版：
今日要闻，骗了全世界十余年 干细胞“学术大牛”走下神坛
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1614619477235832974&wfr=spider&for=pc
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1614619476870888302
https://www.rmzxb.com.cn/c/2018-10-18/2193148.shtml
因为他们知道做实验就有结果。有结果他们就是有了新的实验数据。只要有新的实验数据，他们就可以编纂出创新点，又因为自己有人脉，文章就能发到高档次期刊。有了文章，再加上人脉，拿项目、拿经费也不是问题。他们确实很有能力。