The rate at which scientific journal articles are being retracted has increased roughly tenfold over the past two decades, an exclusive analysis for Times Higher Education reveals.
Growth in research fraud as a result of greater pressure on researchers to publish, improved detection and demands on editors to take action have been raised as possible factors in the change.
The study, by the academic-data provider Thomson Reuters, follows the retraction last month of a paper on the creation of sperm from human embryonic stem cells.
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The Thomson Reuters analysis charts the number of peer-reviewed scientific-journal articles produced each year from 1990 and the number of retractions.
It shows that over nearly 20 years the number of articles produced has doubled, but the number of retractions - still a small fraction of the literature - has increased 20 times. This is equal to a tenfold increase, factoring in the growth of article.
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