Preventing predatory publishing: the CNR's Italian guidelines for researchers

Today, it has been widely acknowledged that predatory publishing represents a crucial issue in research integrity, as it introduces significant distortive effects on (a) the fair competition between research projects, researchers, and research institutions; (b) academic and scientific careers; (c) the allocation of research funds; (d) and, more generally, on the progress of scientific knowledge. Moreover, predatory publishing has been linked with an increased likelihood of spreading fabricated, falsified and erroneous data and conclusions, as well as with the dissemination of fake news that may negatively affect the public debate over relevant societal issues. As a consequence, in recent years, the scientific community has begun to take action with the aim of mitigating and controlling for the effects of predatory publishing. Often, these actions entail two steps: (i) the creation of “black lists” of “predatory” journals and publishing companies; (ii) and a series of measures aimed at both recognizing and discouraging publications in such journals. However, creating such “black lists” is a challenging endeavor, in part because it is difficult to choose a set of unambiguous criteria to distinguish between predatory and legitimate journals; and, in part, because many leading scientific publishers have in some cases begun to adopt marketing strategies that are similar to those adopted by predatory publishing companies. Against this background, in this poster we present a series of practical recommendations aimed at preventing and controlling for the risks that researchers – especially those who are at the early stages of their career – fall prey to predatory publishing. These recommendations are now part of the first Italian guidelines on the issue of predatory publishing, which have been recently published by the Research Ethics and Integrity Committee of the Italian National Research Council (CNR).