Science or imagination? Mysterious ‘Paper Mills’ Let You Pay to Be a Published Author – Research Fraud | sciences

DRhys Richardson’s phone is constantly ringing with notifications. The scientific research integrity specialist has been tracking shadowy organizations known as “paper mills,” which make profits by providing fraudulent academic authorship of scientific papers, intellectual property registrations, and other scientific output.

For a fee, paper mills offer to list people as authors of articles in scientific journals, which are often bogus papers that bypass the peer review process.

Richardson joined dozens of groups across apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp and Facebook, where a range of fraudulent and fabricated research was advertised to hundreds of members. “I can just look at my notifications and I can see that I’ve received about 20 WhatsApp messages from paper mills in the last 24 hours,” he says.

Scientists are under constant pressure to publish new research papers, which in many parts of the world remains academic currency. They generate more funding and accolades, and enhance academic profiles. But robust, high-quality science takes time, and it can take years for papers to be published.

Paper mills provide a fraudulent shortcut, using instant messaging and social media platforms to find potential buyers searching for papers and patents to stack their resumes. According to an analysis conducted by Richardson with Anna Abalkina and Spencer Hong, the average price to purchase an opus is around US$800 (AU$1,150).

In a modern paper, The trio of scientists led by Richardson, formerly of Northwestern University in the US, detailed more than 18,000 advertisements from seven paper mills in seven countries between 2020 and 2026.

“We wanted to get an idea, across a wide range of paper mills, countries, themes and product types, of how well these things are actually being achieved,” he says. “What we have compiled is the largest dataset ever of paper mill advertisements.”

They found several groups advertising authorship of scientific manuscripts via Telegram, Facebook, and various websites for as little as $30.

In the past 15 years, paper mill activity has increased explodedwith one estimate released by Richardson in 2025 indicating that their products are doubling approximately every 18 months. Journal articles produced by these paper mills typically bypass the scientific editorial process accepted for peer review, either because the journals do not establish such processes or because the editors are themselves part of the paper mills’ activities.

This amounts to the industrial injection of falsified data, polluting the scientific ecosystem and harming medical research, drug discovery and clinical trials. The scale is enormous: in 2023, Hindawi, a now-defunct magazine brand owned by major publisher Wiley, Retracted more than 8,000 articles. Another 3,000 applications were withdrawn by the end of 2024.

Richardson says his research is a useful starting point for trying to get a handle on how and where paper mills operate, and who they target. Advertisements are like fingerprints at a crime scene, potential evidence of malicious activity. “You can get a lot of information from ads,” he says. He has traced some of these papers directly to forged papers in the scientific literature.

Designs and intellectual property for sale

Other advertisements relate to copyright and design registrations, another area ripe for fraud, which may provide buyers with legitimate intellectual property rights. Richardson points out that one reason for doing this is to enhance one’s resume in the service of academic advancement.

Richardson has It has been previously identified Exploit the UK’s intellectual property systems and find thousands of design registrations. His new work identifies 12 cases in which design registrations were made public by a paper mill operating in India that catered to Indian academics.

Richardson’s data shows that these design registrations are advertised as “Australian design patents”. Paper mills sell “owner” positions for design registrations, charging between $95 and $150 per owner, for registering up to eight people on any given design. The cost of applying for design registration through IP Australia is $200.

Guardian Australia has identified cases where registrations were listed as patents on CVs.

“They are using Australian government services to defraud others,” Richardson says. He points out several unusual cases of design registrations.

One Australian design registrationfor “AI-based membrane bioreactor for wastewater treatment”, belongs to six people affiliated with Guardian Australia It is affiliated with research institutes in India. Five of the six were contacted. No one responded to requests for comment.

“GS Collison” is listed under the registration service heading, along with 11 other design registrations. However, there is no online trace of GS Collison as an entity, and the address listed for it – the 11th floor of a Darling Park tower in Sydney – corresponds to the offices of insurer IAG. In response to questions from Guardian Australia, An IAG spokesperson noted that the 11th floor is occupied by a series of meeting rooms.

last example“an intelligent human-like robot for industrial applications”, features Dr Nilesh Turwan, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Queensland, as the design owner. When contacted by Guardian Australia, Torwane says he “did not do any design on the product” but was invited to be named on the design by others included in the registry. He also noted that the recording “never formed part of any claim I made for professional or academic advancement.”

“I proactively disclosed the matter to the university and am taking the necessary steps to correct the record, including requesting that my name be removed from the record,” Turwan says. Guardian Australia is not suggesting that the registration is not for a legitimate product, merely that Torwane was not involved in its design.

When contacted by Guardian Australia, An IP Australia spokesperson indicated he was not aware of the paper by Richardson and colleagues.

“Intellectual Property Australia welcomes any information that may suggest that the Australian design registration system is not being used for its intended purposes, and we will consider the implications raised by the research paper. However, we have no data to suggest that there has been widespread misuse of the Australian design registration system in the manner proposed.”

Although Richardson’s research goes some way to exploring how paper mills operate, the mills remain “mysterious organisations”, according to Professor Adrian Barnett, a researcher in esoteric sciences at the Queensland University of Technology who has previously published with Richardson.

“There may be one of the tech kids in their bedroom, or some of them may be larger organizations that even offer morning tea and employees of the month,” he says. “Who knows? But we can see that they are earning a fair amount of money.”

While Richardson is being interviewed, his phone rings again: another ad in a WhatsApp group. Organizations operate at such a scale and speed that it is difficult to keep up.

“We’re still barely scratching the surface,” he says.