JOINNew Report Documents Publisher Investment in Research Integrity Infrastructure
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (January 13, 2026) – A new report, released today, offers the first collective look at the range of approaches scholarly publishers are deploying to tackle threats to research integrity, threats that have evolved in nature and scaled dramatically in recent years.
The STM-commissioned report was researched and compiled by research firm Research Consulting, which conducted in-depth interviews with 18 research integrity and publishing experts across 13 organizations. It documents significant capacity building in recent years. Some publishers now maintain dedicated research integrity teams that number more than 100 staff members and screen millions of manuscript submissions annually. They do so using innovative and evolving detection systems that enlist technology, but keep humans at the center of the work.
This investment has grown in response to two converging pressures. Global R&D spending has nearly tripled since 2000 to roughly $2.5 trillion annually, driving a surge in research output. At the same time, integrity threats have grown more sophisticated, with industrial-scale paper mill operations selling fabricated manuscripts and AI systems capable of generating plausible but false research.
“When research findings inform clinical decisions, shape policy, or guide technology development, trust is everything. This report shows the scale of what our industry is doing to earn and maintain that trust, infrastructure and expertise that most people outside publishing have never seen, deployed across millions of manuscripts every year,” said Caroline Sutton, CEO, STM Association.
The report identifies three pillars of publisher practice: capacity (dedicated teams and screening technology), practice (standards, screening protocols, and training), and coordination (shared detection tools and infrastructure). Major collaborative initiatives documented in the report include the STM Integrity Hub, which now includes 49 organizational members, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) with 106 publisher members representing over 14,500 journals, and United2Act, a coalition of 58 organizations coordinating responses to paper mills.
The report emphasizes that protecting research integrity requires action beyond publishers, across the entire research ecosystem, including institutions, funders, policymakers, and researchers themselves.
“This report captures something we have never documented collectively before: how publishers across the community, large commercial operations to society publishers and community-based initiatives, are building shared capabilities. But it also makes clear that publishers cannot address these challenges alone. Lasting solutions require collaboration with institutions, funders, and researchers, and reforms to evaluation systems that create pressure to publish at any cost,” said Chris Graf, Research Integrity Director, Springer Nature, and Chair, STM Research Integrity Committee.
Related: Read “Unseen efforts to catch paper mill outputs bear fruit” at Times Higher Education