Needing to publish a conference paper for a professional title evaluation, Liu Xia, a lecturer in economics and management at a private university in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province in central China, found an event that was accepting submissions, with a promise that those accepted would be indexed in Compendex, the leading engineering literature database managed by Elsevier, and other listings.

Liu paid the 4,600 yuan (US$680) publishing fee but when she received a copy of her published paper several months later, realised it was printed in an obscure journal that could not be found through any of the recognised academic databases. She later learned that the conference was “entirely fabricated” – it had never taken place and even the organising committee was completely made up.

Liu’s is far from an isolated case, with many academics sharing identical and near-identical experiences on Chinese social media in recent years – such as a post in 2024 detailing a problem that occurred in August 2022.

Source https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3357897/china-some-researchers-are-attending-academic-conferences-do-not-exist

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