In March, Omar, a biomedical researcher, posted a request in a private Facebook group for researchers. He was seeking to have his name added to a paper in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and medicine, in exchange for a payment. To be promoted, he needed to publish at least ten more papers, in journals in the top half of those ranked by the Web of Science, a citation index. And to meet this demanding requirement, he’d turned to paper mills.

Omar’s circumstances are not unusual: many countries operate a research culture that expects researchers to publish frequently to secure their career in science. Omar isn’t the only researcher finding paper mills on Facebook. A separate post offered co-authorship of a paper on medicinal plants and trace elements in return for payment. According to the post, the paper had already been accepted for publication by a respected journal. The reviewers had asked for only minor revisions. Now, the author was seeking other researchers to attach their names to the paper – even though they had not been involved in the research, and would not be needed for substantial revisions.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01824-3?s=09&fbclid=IwY2xjawK4MmJleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETF4Qm9rN2tuMFpyNEFhTm9JAR7ogrOU2_CQXiqT9WgyrwPudhUxwhMlhgMp6vsqdUuMoCYRox3kgy4oyd3p6g_aem_XrT3SYQ44S3gxnYcaqn0Cw

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