Fake Papers, Real Damage: What Early-Career Researchers Should Know About Paper Mills

Paper mills – commercial companies that fabricate or manipulate scientific papers for profit – have grown into a global shadow industry. What once seemed like a marginal problem now affects major publishers, respected journals, and entire research fields. Recent studies suggest that fake publications are growing almost ten times faster than legitimate scientific output.

In this lunch talk, science journalist Anja Reiter shares insights from months of investigative reporting for DIE ZEIT. Drawing on conversations with researchers, journal editors, whistleblowers, and publishers, she explains how paper mills operate, why they thrive under today’s publication pressure, and how AI is accelerating both fraud and detection.

The talk will focus in particular on what this means for early-career researchers and postdocs:

• How can you recognize red flags?
• Why does this matter for research integrity, careers, and even patient safety?
• And what forms of resistance are emerging – from “academic sleuths” to international initiatives such as the Stockholm Declaration?

The session will conclude with a discussion on risks, responsibilities, and possible futures of academic publishing in an ecosystem built around numbers, rankings, and efficiency.

Speaker:

Anja Reiter, freelance journalist covering science, education, environmental issues, and digital transformation, Munich/Germany

Anja Reiter has been working as a freelance journalist for more than ten years. Her long-form features, reports, and interviews on science, education and environmental issues have appeared in leading German media outlets, including DIE ZEIT, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In addition to her journalistic work, she teaches workshops on storytelling, moderates panel discussions and conferences, and is actively involved in the German freelance journalists’ association Freischreiber. She also served on the editorial board of Freienbibel 2 – Professional Knowledge for Freelance Journalists.

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