One of the world’s top professional societies for scientists and engineers has retracted 1,417 conference papers in one go.

The move was announced in a 28 October statement by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in New York City. It is the largest single bulk retraction issued by any scholarly publisher, research‑integrity specialists told Nature.

The IEEE announcement did not identify the affected papers. However, Nature's news team has verified that IEEE retracted at least 1,417 conference papers on 23 October. All of them were previously identified by a study of research works that can be traced to social‑media advertisements by paper mills — businesses that sell authorship slots for papers which in turn often describe low‑quality or fake research.

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Authorship for sale

In their study, Abalkina and her colleagues recorded 4,407 advertisements selling authorships on conference papers. These adverts were found on more than 200 social‑media channels such as Telegram, WhatsApp and Facebook. The researchers then flagged 2,062 IEEE papers with titles that were an exact or near‑match to the advertised papers.

The team found that, overall, prices for authorship ranged from US$43 to $400 for a first‑author slot and $11 to $200 for a last‑author slot. The study also shows that of the 109 IEEE‑sponsored conferences that published five or more papers matching paper‑mill adverts, 95 took place in India.

“Paper mills are a public market and the offers for sale are public on social media. Anyone can find them. Anyone can buy. Anyone can trace [them],” says Abalkina.

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