iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

My new post on the Tanu.pro paper mill in Italy. The paper mill has launched an aggressive marketing campaign in Italy to increase the H-index. It makes an impression that they are just expanding in Italy, but they have been present there for a long time. www.roars.it/fabbriche-di... #papermills

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

I'm excited to share our new preprint on paper mills in conferences. We explored 200+ social media channels that promoted offers for sale and identified 1,720 papers published in 286 IEEE conferences. We found some 🚩: six-author co-authorship and affiliation diversity arxiv.org/abs/2604.22458

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

I'm excited to make a presentation at WCRI in May 2026. With my co-authors ( @solalpirelli.bsky.social , Yagmur Ozturk and Marie Kunešová), we explore paper mills in conferences, a topic which is not well studied in the literature. I will be happy to meet my friends there and make new ones!

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

I was delighted to learn that Elisabeth Bik (@elisabethbik.bsky.social) finds inspiration in my work. Thank you, Elisabeth, for the nomination. I truly appreciate your support! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

I was delighted to speak at the Symposium der Ombudspersonen für Gute Wissenschaftliche Praxis in Deutschland about the challenges posed by #papermills. Commercialization of fraud threatens research integrity, undermines the reliability of data,& leads to significant losses of time & resources 1/3

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Hi, I'll have a look. My spreadsheets cover mainly paper mill papers. The one with fake authors is quite small now.

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

This is a new phenomenon and business model exploiting gaps in publishing. The cartel uses fake names to produce AI-written or plagiarised papers. Reference lists contain 100s of paid entries.If papers are retracted, no real authors are punished, and citations still count, even from retracted papers

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Reposted by Anna Abalkina

Elisabeth Bik @elisabethbik.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Excited to be participating in the virtual Research Integrity Week events, by the Researchers Society/Pakistan Economics Frontier, organized by Abbas Aziz, hosted by Dr. Saba Saeed, with @sholtodavid.bsky.social , @abalkina.bsky.social, Najma Memon, and @reeserichardson.bsky.social Starting in 2h

Flyer: Research Integrity Week, with photos of the speakers and organizers, with a QR code to register (but it leads to a message saying the registration is full).

Schedule (in Pakistan times):
Date and TIme Speaker Topic
28 JAN, 10:00AM-
th Prof. Dr. Najma
10:35AM
Memon
th
28 JAN, 10:45AM-
11:25AM
th
28 JAN, 12:00PM-
12:35PM
th
29 JAN, 9:00AM-
9:35AM
Abbas Aziz
Dr. Anna Abalkina
Dr. Elisabeth Bik Fundamentals of Research Integrity
Scientific Misconduct in Material
Science
Hijacked Journals: Definition and Key
Challenges
Errors and Misconduct in Biomedical
Research Images
th
29 JAN, 9:45AM-
10:25AM
Dr. Reese Richardson
Exploitation of intellectual property
systems for the manipulation of
academic reputations
th
29 JAN, 10:30AM-
11:10AM
Dr. Sholto David
Identifying Errors and Manipulations
in scientific paper with the focus on
Images

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Reposted by Anna Abalkina

Bernd Pulverer @berndpulverer.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

@Abalkina.bsky.social on eerie new papermill strategy #APE2026: invented papers with fake authors & paid for references for H-index padding. Even on retraction, citations persist. Remedy: 1) prepublication integrity screening; 2) remove H-index from Research assemment @Dorassessment.bsky.social

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Happy Advent!🎄 Day 24 Ready for a new puzzle? A case from a paper that was published some days ago papermills.tilda.ws/2025advent24 papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025 This is the last case of 2025. I hope you enjoyed the calendar as much as I enjoyed preparing it, and I wish you warm seasonal greetings!

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Theatre performances in Berlin are very particular - many of them have political vibes, even when it’s classical repertoire. I was at the opera Don Giovanni, and halfway through there was a notice: Don Ottavio’s aria “Il mio tesoro” would be skipped due to cuts in Berlin’s cultural funding.

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 23. Ready for a new puzzle? Today's puzzle is related to journal's inconsistencies. papermills.tilda.ws/2025advent23 papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 19. Ready for a new puzzle? Do you see inconsistencies between two tables? papermills.tilda.ws/2025advent19 papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 17. Ready for a new puzzle? Another paper-mill paper. Do you see inconsistencies? papermills.tilda.ws/2025advent17 papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

The last session of the year. We had a funny Mentimeter: what if Santa had a development agency (the course is related to development and development aid). It was fun!

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 16. Ready for a new puzzle? Inconsistency case in a paper-mill paper. papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Preparing for the last teaching sessions of the year. I do a funny quiz for my students: If Santa ran a development agency, how would he decide who gets support?

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 15. Ready for a new puzzle? This is one of my favorite cases of 2025. papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 11. Ready for a new puzzle? papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 9. Ready for a new puzzle? papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 8. Today's puzzle is about figure inconsistencies! Do you spot the problem? papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 7. Could you identify any issues in the demographic data? papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 6. Today's puzzle is about reference list! Do you spot the problem? papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 5. Today's puzzle is about paper mills. papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Reposted by Anna Abalkina

Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

We see a new phenomenon. Fake authors in papers with hundreds of citations. Papers are easy to produce by ChatGPT. Even if a paper is retracted, no punishment to the real authors, but citations still count. Today's puzzle is about a similar case papermills.tilda.ws/2025advent4

papermills.tilda.ws

Advent2025 4

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 4. Today's puzzle is about new cases and the phenomenon of problematic papers. papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 3. Today's puzzle is about hijacked journals. papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Day 2. Today's puzzle is about paper mills' red flags! Do you spot the problem? papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Happy Advent! !!!🎄✨ Welcome to a new edition of the Research Integrity Advent Calendar. Each day brings a small challenge: spot the problem, detect inconsistencies, and sharpen your skills. Enjoy the season and the daily puzzles! Day 1. papermills.tilda.ws/advent2025

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

This invitation to contribute to the J. of S.Health (see a screenshot) with video and PPT materials reminded me of an anecdote. A professor comes to give a lecture about love. Love, he begins, can take many forms. For example, between a man and a woman. Students: Slides, please. 1/2

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Berlin Science Week. Oxford-style debate. Should we publish in academic journals?

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

New descriptive statistics tables in T&F journals produced by a paper mill. Do you notice anything wrong with them? #papermills

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

I'm very grateful to DomainTools for providing access to their instruments to analyse web domains. Thanks to this tool I have just found two hijacked journals which will be added to the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker during the next update.

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

It's already 3 years since I'm looking at Tanu.pro paper mill. Tanu.pro is an email domain that the paper mill used to submit papers. When this fraud was detected, the paper mill abandoned it and it expired. Now I found that the domain is registered again in an anonymous registrar in Reykjavik.

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

The study which, I believe, is from a paper mill that I'm looking at, publishes this kind of table. Negative values of GDP (in the paper it's GDP but not a growth rate), strange SD values, negative interest rates (which can be in the case of Japan but min should be -0.1 but not -0.03). #papermills

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Sightseeing day around Germany! Such wonderful weather, and I found a treasure, the city of Tangermünde, right in the heart of Germany.

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Happy to be in the Tagesspiegel office which hosts 100 scientists of Berlin and Brandenburg of 2025.

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

The paper mill probably forgot to include several sections in the paper, including the data and results. The Methods section mentions a survey that is never described in the paper. Immediately after the methods section comes the conclusion. Yet, the paper was still published.

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

Finally I get invitations from hijacked journals to publish with them. It will go immediately to Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker. Please, send me more.

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

I’m honored to be named one of Tagesspiegel’s “100 Researchers of Berlin” for 2025, featured in today’s category “Swimming against the current.” Grateful to be recognized alongside inspiring researchers who challenge convention and push boundaries

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

There’s a striking pattern among the top journals targeted by an Indian paper mill. All have sharply increased their publication number in recent years. Is this growth driven by publisher goals, a surge in submissions due to AI, or both? #papermills

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

I found a watermark of an Indian paper mill, which helped me identify 100+ papers over the weekend. So far, 490 papers have been detected. Most authors are from India, China, and Saudi Arabia. Only 4 papers have been retracted. Papers are full of fake data, yet they still get published. #papermills

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

How many and what kind of mistakes can you spot in this table?

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

I’m looking at a specific paper mill in India. So far, I have detected 339 papers, 105 of which were published in 2025. Only the biggest publishers are being targeted. Only two papers have been retracted. This is the dashboard of a paper mill. lookerstudio.google.com/reporting/36... #papermills

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Catch of the day. Do you find anything wrong here?

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

This is a great article on paper mills by Lea Wolz (in German). It provides a general overview of paper mills and their impact on science. It gives examples of how fake papers penetrate Cochrane reviews and bias recommendations. Highly recommended! www.quarks.de/gesellschaft... #papermills

quarks.de

Fake-Studien: Dubiose Firmen unterwandern die Wissenschaft

Die Zahl an Fake-Studien von dubiosen Firmen steigt rasant. Wie groß ist das Problem – und kann dieser wissenschaftliche Müll Patienten schaden? Wissenschaftler warnen vor den Folgen.

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Anna Abalkina @abalkina.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

Today I find myself in an unusual territory. I will give a talk at the legendary International Mathematical Union in Berlin! I'm very grateful to Prof.Agricola for the invitation to discuss the problem of paper mills.

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