Guest editors in science journals: a growing concern for research quality
In the world of academic publishing, special issues—collections of research articles centered around a specific theme—have long been revered as a way to spotlight groundbreaking work. Yet, beneath their polished surface lies a troubling trend: the growing reliance on guest editors to curate these issues has exposed serious cracks in research reliability.
A Cautionary Tale of Collapse
The most recent scandal erupted when a journal was forced to pull nearly all papers from a cancer immunotherapy special issue after uncovering critical flaws in the peer-review process. While the scale of this failure drew headlines, it’s merely the tip of a much larger iceberg.
Profit Over Principles: The Business of Special Issues
Critics argue that journals increasingly prioritize quantity over quality, using special issues as cash cows to inflate their profits and researchers’ résumés. The evidence is stark:
- In 2024 alone, one major publisher retracted 34 papers from special issues due to weak oversight.
- Thousands of retractions tracked by Ivan Oransky, a leading expert on academic misconduct, reveal that many involve "paper mills"—entities that mass-produce fraudulent research.
- A staggering one in five articles now hails from special issues for certain publishers between 2016 and 2022, driven by the shift to open-access fees (where journals profit from authors, not readers).
How the Peer-Review System Breaks Down
The foundational purpose of peer review—to weed out flawed studies—often collapses in the special issue ecosystem. Accelerated timelines and lax scrutiny mean:
- Guest editors, who often select their own colleagues, trust the vetting process implicitly.
- Economist Paolo Crosetto likens the system to a pyramid scheme, where editors recruit contributors who, in turn, expand the issue’s reach—all while trusting the guest editor’s judgment.
- Shockingly, in over 10% of special issues, the guest editor authored more than a third of the papers.
The Fight to Restore Scientific Integrity
Amid the chaos, some reforms are emerging:
- Funding agencies are probing how researchers spend publishing fees, demanding greater accountability.
- Public preprint servers are gaining traction. One major institute now requires scientists to share their work openly before submitting to journals.
- "When journals become status symbols, bad habits spread," warns Bodo Stern of the institute. The goal? Redirect focus to true scientific merit.
The publishing world stands at a crossroads. Will it clamp down on the exploitation of special issues, or will the pursuit of profit continue to erode the foundations of credible science?
