2025

In academic publishing, authorship is far more than a name on a paper, it is a statement of intellectual contribution, accountability, and ownership. For decades, the scholarly community has treated authorship order as a natural by-product…

The economics of scholarly publishing have shifted substantially in the past decade: global spending on article processing charges (APCs) grew rapidly between 2019 and 2023, and authors increasingly encounter a patchwork of submission,…

On December 10 this year, the Nobel Committee awarded Professor Susumu Kitagawa the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on porous polymers. Six years ago, we had the rare privilege of speaking with him about his research and the advances…

Every published paper is only as durable as the scrutiny that follows it: recent monitoring shows almost 55,000 recorded retractions in 2024 alone, reflecting both the growth of the literature and increased attention to problems after…

Editors desk-reject a large share of submissions before peer review, and language problems are repeatedly flagged as a top avoidable reason. For early-career and experienced researchers alike, a clear final-language check can mean the…

A clear argument and rigorous methods can be undermined by unclear structure or uneven presentation. Improved writing is not merely cosmetic. Empirical and industry analyses indicate tangible benefits from substantive editorial support. A…

A manuscript’s first impression often determines whether it crosses the editorial threshold. Professional providers report millions of authors seeking editorial support worldwide, and many leading journals reject more than half of their…

The biomedical literature has expanded rapidly: PubMed indexed more than 27 million records through 2024, reflecting steep growth in biomedical outputs and an expanding set of journal formats, reporting guidelines, and editorial…

A recent landscape study found more than 32,700 suspected fake papers linked to organised “paper mills,” and concluded that fraudulent outputs are growing faster than corrective measures can keep up. This accelerating problem now…

A growing number of retractions and high-profile exposures have focused attention on the many faces of scientific fraud and on the limits of peer review to catch them before publication. Understanding common fraud types, why some slip…