Second senior experts’ lunch symposium
Is artificial intelligence a world-wide threat for bio- and molecular sciences helping to generate fraud?
Focus
The publish-or-perish imperative has fueled a surge of mis- and disinformation, with fabricated papers now numbering in the thousands each year in biomedicine alone. These fabrications increasingly rely on artificial intelligence and industrialized plagiarism, underscoring the urgent need to rethink current practices in scientific publishing. We present countermeasures developed by an international panel of experts in June 2025, to be published as the “Stockholm Declaration” on the “Reformation of Scientific Publishing.”
(Chairs: G. Reiser & R. Heumann)
Welcome and Introduction (12:15-12:20)
Dan Larhammar, Uppsala [SE]
Fact or Fake? Tackling Science Disinformation (12:20-13:20)
Bernhard Sabel, Magdeburg [DE]
Fake-Mafia in Bioscience – the paper mills (12:20-13:20)
Discussion and Q&A session for the audience (13:20-13:45)
Abstract
Fact or Fake? Tackling Science Disinformation with the Stockholm Declaration
Authors: Dan Larhammar1, Bernhard Sabel2
1 Uppsala University, Medical Cell Biology, Biomedical Center, Husargatan 3, 75123 Uppsala, Sweden, Dan.Larhammar@uu.se
2 University of Magdeburg "Otto von Guericke", Medical Psychology, Magdeburg, Germany bernhard.sabel@med.ovgu.de
The crisis in science publishing has escalated due to production of AI-generated fake articles on an industrial scale. These cause damage in several different ways. Fake articles deceive both experts and general readers. Efforts to replicate or build upon the purported conclusions are meaningless and a waste of resources. The results may lead to fatal applications, especially in medicine. To discuss ways to tackle the problems on multiple fronts, experts on various aspects of science publishing were summoned to a symposium at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm in June 2025. Devoted discussions resulted in a document describing the situation and proposing in total 34 actions in four adjacent and overlapping areas, published as "The Stockholm Declaration" in the journal Royal Society Open Science (November 2025): (i) Academia should resume control of publishing using non-profit publishing models (e.g. diamond open-access); (ii) Adjust incentive systems in academia to merit quality, not quantity, where the gaming of publication numbers and citation metrics distort the perception of academic excellence; (iii) Implement mechanisms to prevent and detect fake publications and fraud which are independent of publishers; (iv) Draft and implement legislations, regulations and policies to increase publishing quality and integrity. All responsible stakeholders must interact to protect and maintain the integrity and trustworthiness of scientific research.
Abstract
Fact or Fake? A science publishing crisis in progress
Authors: Bernhard Sabel2, Dan Larhammar1,
1 Uppsala University, Medical Cell Biology, Biomedical Center, Husargatan 3, 75123 Uppsala, Sweden, Dan.Larhammar@uu.se
2 University of Magdeburg "Otto von Guericke", Medical Psychology, Magdeburg, Germany bernhard.sabel@med.ovgu.de
The publishing of fake science publications, conference reports and reviews is a risk for the permanent scientific record of books and journals. Supported by AI - and accelerated by a reputation economy of a “publish-or perish” culture – paper mills support desperate scientists by freely invented publications. Using mafia-like methods, this creates incalculable damage to our “intellectual infrastructure”, hindering scientific, medical and economic progress of our knowledge-based societies. The dissemination of fake is supported by “pull-factors” – scientists under career pressure too often behave unethically to reach their goals by fake publications (to increase promotion / reputation) - and “push-factors”: ‘paper mills’ selling fake-publications using plagiarism, fake data, -text and -images, fake authors, editors and reviewers with support of predatory journals and conferences. The result: rising numbers of low-quality publications and hundreds of thousands of fake publications per year, editor and reviewer fatigue, misguided or irreproducible experiments, disinformation and rising publishing costs that devour funding from taxpayers intended for research. Too little effort is made by publishers to stop this fraud, though some are waking up. It is high time to tackle the problem and take action: everyone could help - individuals and organizations – by co-signing the Stockholm Declaration and its proposed counter measures (www.sciii-it.org/stockholm-declaration).