Ethics and Integrity in Academic Publishing

Predatory journals, publishing and conferences are becoming an increas-ingly widespread worldwide phenomenon. Reaching an agreed definition and finding criteria for the complex identification of a predatory journal, publisher or confer-ence, are two of the main problems encountered in the analysis of this phenomenon. In recent times, a consensus definition was proposed at an international stake-holders meeting. Ethical concerns have been raised about the potential effects of this phenomenon on scientific competition between researchers and research projects; on academic careers; on the allocation of funds for research; more generally, on the advancement of scientific knowledge and with regard to the risk that erroneous, fabri-cated, falsified or plagiarized data may be published, thus compromising scientific literature and contributing to the dissemination of fake news. The international scien-tific community recognize that predatory publishing activities represent a crucial issue to be addressed in science and in the research integrity field; as a conse-quence, action is needed to mitigate and manage their implications as well as to guide authors, especially younger ones, in the process of academic publishing. Inter-national campaigns have been undertaken over the last few years with the aim of establishing a set of measures both to identify predatory journals or dubious editors and to discourage researchers from publishing in such journals. In this chapter, we present a series of practical recommendations aimed at preventing and controlling the risks to be prey of predatory journals and conferences. These recommendations are presented in the first Italian ethical toolkit on the issue, which have been published in 2019 by the Research Ethics and Integrity Committee of the National Research Council (CNR). A standard-setting process and the development of best practices can contribute to foster a culture of research integrity and to preserve the quality of scientific publishing.