Fake journals, fake papers, fake citations: Navigating a risky publishing landscape
- Date
- 20 May 2026, 15:00–16:00
- Location
- Online
- Type
- Lecture, Seminar
- Lecturer
- Sonja Bjelobaba, William Bülow O'Nils
- Web page
- https://uu-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/MhAmkSW2R7OiwgAWdzOQHg#/registration
- Organiser
- Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics
- Contact person
- Sonja Bjelobaba
There is big money in scientific publishing. With Open Access, predatory publishers and fake journals emerged. Now, generative AI is fuelling paper mills that pose new threats to, and place great demands on, the peer review system. How can we uphold good publication practice and maintain research integrity in today’s landscape? Do you know how to spot a predatory journal?
Scientific publishing is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate. Alongside long standing challenges such as ensuring rigorous peer review and research integrity, new problems have emerged. The move towards open access caused a spread of predatory publishers and fake journals: organisations that present themselves as legitimate but lack proper editorial standards and prioritise monetary gains over rigid review and integrity. More recently, generative AI has made it possible to produce large volumes of fake research papers, often with fabricated data and references.
20 May 2026, Sonja Bjelobaba and William Bülow O’Nils will explain how to identify predatory journals, why they are harmful, and why researchers sometimes publish in them, and the problem of generative AI and paper mills, outlining how fake articles are created and how they affect research integrity and trust in science. Supporting researchers at Uppsala University and beyond in making informed decisions about who to cite and where to publish their work, and safeguarding good research practice.