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Welcome to the September issue of COPE Digest
A lot has happened in scholarly publishing during the six or so years since the last update to the retraction guidelines. Misconduct has evolved and become more sophisticated, coordinated and widespread. New AI-based forms of misconduct have become more common. COPE’s retraction guidelines have been updated to address this. However, the landscape is changing so rapidly that it will surely be much less than six years before another update to this document is needed.
While the core purpose of retraction remains unchanged, to correct the literature and alert readers to seriously flawed content that cannot be relied upon, the updated guidelines provide a more detailed and expanded framework to deal with an increasingly complex landscape of research misconduct. In particular, with several high-profile cases recently where publishers have had to issue mass retractions for systematic manipulation, the guidelines place increased emphasis on the core purpose of a retraction: to correct the literature and ensure its integrity, not to punish the author.
The new guidelines add a more comprehensive list of reasons for retraction. The 2019 version cites issues such as major error, plagiarism, and redundant publication as reasons for retraction. The updated version expands upon these to include issues such as image irregularities, fictitious data, the undisclosed use of artificial intelligence and widespread systematic manipulation of the publication process (eg, paper mills).
The concept of an editor losing confidence in the content of an article, after having identified one or more of these concerns, is introduced as the basis of an editorial decision to retract. The concept of "batch retractions" to deal with large-scale manipulation of the publication process is introduced. Batch retraction acknowledges that there is sometimes a need for a coordinated (within and between journals and publishers) response to widespread fraud.
The 2025 version also offers more options for handling problematic articles by introducing different forms of retraction, for example, "retraction with replacement" and "retraction with removal". "Retraction with replacement" would be appropriate for articles with serious errors that change the findings but don’t invalidate the underlying scholarship, while "retraction with removal" is reserved for extremely rare cases such as legal or public health risks if the material remains easily available. These forms of retraction are consistent with those recommended in the NISO Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern guidelines (CREC).
Howard Browman, COPE Trustee
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