Study links spike in retractions to global collaborations

A new study examining retraction patterns in Saudi Arabian research from 2014 to 2023 shows that in 2022 – a peak year for retractions in Saudi Arabian institutions – over 88% of retracted publications emanating from the country stemmed from international collaborations.

The study, “The retraction problem in collaborations with Saudi Arabia: evidence from 2014-2023”, published in Scientometrics on 22 January 2026, argues that the temporal alignment between Saudi Arabia’s incentive-driven research policies and the surge in retractions points to “underlying systemic integrity issues”. It makes some suggestions to address these issues.

Authored by Professor Ridha Mhamdi at the Centre of Biotechnology of Borj-Cedria in Tunisia, the study finds that compromised peer review, paper mills, and computer-generated content (CGC) emerged as dominant drivers of the retraction trend, “implicating both systemic vulnerabilities in scholarly publishing and likely incentive structures that prioritise quantity over rigour”.

From 2014 to 2023, Saudi Arabian institutions published a total of 343,588 documents, comprising primarily articles (80.7%), followed by conference papers (8.3%), reviews (5.8%), book chapters (2.3%), and other document types, the study notes.

Rising output

The annual publication output rose substantially from 24,000 documents in 2019 to over 62,000 in 2023. Concurrently, the number of retracted documents showed a marked increase from 2020 onwards, escalating from 69 in 2020 to 445 in 2022.

Notably, over 78% of the retracted documents were published within the 2020–2023 timeframe. Consequently, the retraction rate significantly increased during this later period, reaching its peak in 2022, with 7.5 retractions per thousand publications (7.5‰).

The most affected publishers were Hindawi (335 retractions), Elsevier (150), Springer Nature (114), PLOS (81), MDPI (54), Frontiers (37), Nature Research (26), and Wiley (21), according to the study.

At the journal level, the highest retraction counts occurred in Biomed Research International (86), PLOS ONE (82), Journal of Function Spaces (39), Journal of Mathematics (37) and Advances in Materials Science and Engineering (35).

The majority of retractions within the 2020 to 2023 timeframe originated from Q1 and Q2 journals (94%) and open-access publications (72%).

Analysis of retraction data by discipline reveals that engineering had the highest number of retractions (215), followed by biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology (195) and mathematics (154).

In contrast, disciplines in the social sciences, business, economics, and humanities, as well as specific life sciences and applied fields like nursing and veterinary, demonstrate considerably lower numbers of retracted publications during 2020-2023.

According to the paper, King Saud University exhibited the highest number of retractions (234), followed by King Abdulaziz University (117), Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University (124), King Khalid University (105) and Taif University (97).

When normalised by scholarly output, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University demonstrated the highest retraction rate (9.0%), followed by the University of Tabuk (8.1%), Taif University (7.9%) and King Khalid University (6.5%). The lowest rate was observed at Qassim University (3.6%).

International collaboration

The study indicates that the increase in publication output was associated with a parallel rise in international collaboration. Notably, from 2020 to 2023, while the volume of local (national) collaborations remained relatively stable, the corpus of international collaborative publications approximately doubled.

In 2022, over 88% of retracted documents stemmed from international collaborations, it says.

The collaboration network of the retracted papers involved 98 countries, of which 34 met the study’s threshold of 10 retractions. Five prominent clusters were identified, with Pakistan exhibiting the highest number of retractions co-authored with Saudi Arabia (267), followed by India (250), Egypt (216), and China (151).

The study finds that all of Saudi Arabia’s collaborative partners demonstrated a notable increase in retraction rates in publications co-authored with Saudi Arabian institutions compared to their non-Saudi co-authored publications.

Particularly pronounced increases were observed for Ethiopia (10-fold increase), Iraq (13-fold increase), and Bangladesh (nine-fold increase).

The United States, despite exhibiting a comparatively low baseline retraction rate, showed a dramatic 12-fold increase in the retraction rate of publications co-authored with Saudi Arabia.

The analysis identifies 297 authors with three or more retractions (128 Saudi-affiliated, 169 collaborators), revealing “a troubling pattern of recurrent misconduct”, the study notes.

As many as 94 authors – including 50 affiliated with Saudi institutions – had five or more retractions, with extreme cases reaching 14, 18, and 20 retractions per individual.

While collaborators accounted for the majority (61%) of authors with three to four retractions, Saudi-affiliated researchers represented 53% of cases with five or more retractions, suggesting “escalating severity among domestic researchers”, the study argues.

The study identifies compromised peer review as the most frequently cited cause for retraction across the collaborations, consistently exceeding 60% and approaching 100% in partnerships with Ethiopia and Bangladesh.

Paper mill activity and the presence of CGC also contributed, notably in collaborations with Ethiopia and Bangladesh, and to a lesser extent with Pakistan, India, and South Korea.

Duplication, plagiarism, manipulation, and errors were less frequently cited as primary reasons for retraction, although duplication showed a relatively higher prevalence in collaborations involving Egypt and the United States, the study finds.

Reward quality, not quantity

The study suggests a reform agenda focused on rebalancing research metrics to reward quality, reproducibility and ethical compliance rather than output volume.

In addition to giving priority to collaborators with low retraction rates and transparent workflows, it calls for greater institutional oversight through the establishment of research integrity offices at Saudi universities to investigate misconduct patterns and train researchers in ethical practices and blacklist repeat offenders, whether authors, editors, or journals.

It argues for greater publisher accountability through the adoption of AI-resistant tools to detect CGC and fake peer reviews. Disclosures of retraction notices should be standardised, including fraud confirmation and remediation steps, it suggests.

It also recommends global coordination against paper mills through support for cross-border initiatives such as STM Integrity Hub.

‘Silly games’ in league tables

Sholto David, research integrity expert and contributor to the For Better Science blog, said the study’s findings were “not surprising".

“There are a large number of papers authored by Saudi researchers featuring unlikely international collaborations,” he told University World News.

“I think it is fairly well understood that authorship on some of these papers is sold online; the main purpose is to further the careers of the individuals involved. Institutions likely encourage this behaviour because it increases their visibility or position on ranking tables,” David said.

Asked what higher education policymakers might do to address the situation, David said: “Well, I suppose it seems like there is a choice: either try to fund high-quality and meaningful research or play silly games in league tables and indexes. You probably can't do both.”

He said although the large number of retractions indicates that a problem is being addressed, he argued, “it doesn't necessarily tell you much about Saudi Arabia's overall position”.

“A reflexive response might be to try and reduce the number of retractions, but [in the] long term that may not increase the quality of research,” David said.

‘Toxic mix’ of circumstances

Philip Altbach, professor emeritus and distinguished fellow at the Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, in the United States, ascribed the significant rise of retractions to “a toxic mix of circumstances”.

“For example, many universities, especially in the Global South, have put pressure on their professors to publish, even when their main role is teaching and the facilities for publication, especially in the sciences, are lacking,” Altbach said.

“Further, a network of fake and ‘pay to publish’ journals has grown, and networks of professors in ‘high pressure’ countries have emerged to publish articles based on faulty science, inaccurate or no data, and other problems.

“Some of these articles are caught and are subject to retraction,” he said.

Altbach said the solution to the problem was “to reward what most professors do, which is teach, and not expect them to publish articles just to ‘check a box’ for promotion or hiring regardless of quality”.

“Saudi universities got caught up in this syndrome – the problem has been recognised, and hopefully steps are taken to solve it,” Altbach said.

Global phenomenon

Saudi academic and expert in higher education, Dr Sakhr Alhuthali, said the global trend of increasing retractions was not unique to Saudi Arabia. Nonetheless, it highlighted in general the “urgent need for stronger academic oversight and cooperation”, he said.

Alhuthali, a visiting researcher at Imperial College London, has in the past raised concerns about academic ethics in the context of global university rankings and has criticised unethical practices, including cash-based authorship and artificial inflation of institutional research output.

Some of these views were published in a 2022 study and a 2023 online newspaper article.

He told University World News: “Unfortunately, within parts of the Saudi academic community, public discussion of such malpractices is interpreted as conflicting with prevailing academic norms, rather than being recognised as an expression of civic or institutional responsibility.”

He identified several structural factors contributing to the problem, including the fact that collaborations are initiated by non-Saudi parties through unsolicited “phishing” e-mails sent directly to Saudi institutional addresses.

He described this practice as closer to academic spam than genuine collaboration because at this stage, the manuscript is ready to be published. Limited awareness and weak consequences have allowed the practice to spread, he said.

Alhuthali said existing incentive systems reward publication quantity without adequately distinguishing between levels of intellectual contribution (for example, first versus later authorship), either financially or in promotion criteria.

This has encouraged opportunistic co-authorships aimed at rapid financial gain or career advancement, he argued.

Gaps in institutional support

Alhuthali said academic promotion should be based on expert assessment of scholarly competence and research behaviour, not solely on publication counts. He also noted that hyper-prolific academics are not required to present or defend their work, enabling publication across unrelated topics.

“The absence of strong and active local scientific societies, combined with shortages of critical debate and limited investigative media coverage, has further exacerbated the issue by reducing accountability,” he said.

These practices can sometimes be linked to gaps in institutional support, including areas such as research infrastructure, professional research management, communication systems, and access to experimental materials, highlighting opportunities for strengthening the research environment, he argued.

“Fair international collaboration should be based on the genuine exchange of knowledge, expertise, and laboratory resources, not on conditional affiliations or financial transactions with individuals,” Alhuthali said.

Alhuthali said Saudi Arabia had taken steps to address the issue by introducing intellectual property protection and the National Policy on Scientific Integrity and Research Ethics, which are expected to establish national principles for research ethics to support more transparent and accountable research practices.