‘Nature’ retracts 75 papers connected to university rector

In response to concerns raised by several scientists and a prominent Spanish media outlet, the scientific publisher Springer Nature has retracted 75 conference papers connected to computer scientist Juan Manuel Corchado, rector of the University of Salamanca (USAL), who has been accused of dramatically inflating citations to his own work, writes Cathleen O’Grady for Science.

The mass retraction is “unprecedented” in Spain, says University of Granada bibliometrician Alberto Martín Martín, who last month published a report with collaborator Emilio Delgado López-Cózar showing evidence of citation manipulation in conference proceedings that cited Corchado, as well as in short texts uploaded to ResearchGate and USAL’s repository. The pair originally flagged the now-retracted papers to Spanish newspaper El País in May, which subsequently reported them to Springer Nature. The retractions are “a bittersweet outcome”, Martín Martín says, because they confirm inappropriate behaviour, but “at least there have been some steps to correct it”.

In a statement emailed to Science, a member of Corchado’s research group says since June, the group has been working with Springer Nature to correct a number of articles with editorial errors, but that the publisher decided to retract them instead. The papers represent only a very small percentage of Corchado’s and the research group’s work, the statement says, and the accusations are “malicious and solely aimed at discrediting the research group”. Corchado did not directly respond to request for comment.
Full report on the Science site