Heliyon published over 11,000 papers in 2023 and more than 17,000 in 2024, issuing around two dozen retractions in each year. Last year, the journal published 3,168 articles and retracted 392 others. So far this year, 37 papers have been retracted, and 144 have been published. The retraction notices cite reference issues, citation stacking, suspicious affiliations and areas of research, authorship changes, ethical approval, among others.

Clarivate put Heliyon on hold in September 2024, citing concerns about the quality of the content. Queen Muse, the head of media and communications at Cell Press, pointed to a statement the journal published April, 2025. The statement says Elsevier started an investigation involving “all published articles between the launch of the journal and the present day for integrity and ethics concerns,” the statement says. It also states the investigation is ongoing, and also includes “making improvements to the journal’s workflow to help prevent ethical issues in new submitted papers.”

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2026/02/03/mega-journal-heliyon-retracts-hundreds-of-papers-after-internal-audit/

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