
Multimillion-dollar trade in paper authorships alarms publishers – Nature (Holly Else | January 2023)
We were previously unaware of this latest form of shady practice in scholarly publishing. Institutional policies, guidance material and professional development should warn individuals away from selling authorship slots as well as purchasing authorship of a paper. The act of selling or buying are serious forms of research misconduct and should be treated as such. An individual seeking promotion, a performance bonus or referring to purchased coauthorship are forms of fraud. This is a topic area collaborating researchers, research office staff, editors, peer reviewers and Research Integrity Advisers should be aware of.