On 23 March, 2026, Retraction Watch published a story about a physicist in India who had three papers on superheavy elements retracted after others in his field began flagging his work. Hours later, a publisher decided to retract an entire volume of conference proceedings after one of the critics pointed out the researcher, H.C. Manjunatha, was responsible for the majority of its contents.

Manjunatha was one of four editors for the conference’s proceedings published in EPJ Web of Conferences on March 18. Of the 55 articles in the volume, Manjunatha is an author on 32. Manjunatha is named in the draft retraction notice Solange Guehot, editor of the journal, shared. “A specific type of malpractice is involved, in particular serial publications of the same author, H.C. Manjunatha, with 32 articles in the same volume,” the draft notice reads. “We are extremely concerned by such malpractice which considerably impacts the image of our title and our Publisher’s reputation.”

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2026/03/24/edp-sciences-publisher-to-retract-conference-proceedings-ban-editor/

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