Retraction of Scholarly Outputs and Instances of Research Misbehavior

Along with significant expansion of research activities globally, various instances of research misbehavior are also increasing which lead to the retraction of scholarly outputs in many cases. The present study aims to investigate the characteristics of retracted articles published by Springer during 2010-2016.

The current study is an applied research in terms of objectives while it is a descriptive in terms of data collection which was conducted using scientometric indicators. The population of the study comprised of 974 retracted articles published by Springer in 422 journals during 2010-2016. The data were collected from the Springer link and analyzed using descriptive statistical methods.

During the studied time, an average of 2.31 papers published in each Springer journal was retracted. Results of the study showed that the most common reason for retraction was plagiarism (301), followed closely by compromised peer review (248). Moreover, the most retracted articles were belonged to the China (391), Iran (106) and the United States of America (92). Most retraction notices were issued by the journals’ editors and editorial board members (565) and publishers (353).

The high share of retracted articles written by the Iran researchers is very notable. Observing research ethics as a scientific and ethical responsibility must be considered by researchers and scientific journals’ board members. Journal editors, universities and research institutions need to establish clear policies for article retraction.