The bibliometric study, published on July 24, 2026 in the journal Scientometrics, published by Springer Nature, uses the Retraction Watch database to identify all of the paper mill papers that have been retracted. The search yielded 10,409 retracted paper mill papers since the database’s inception (in October 2018) until 2024, with a massive spike in 2023.

Research articles have been accumulated to be the largest form of retractions over the years, followed by conference abstracts/papers and clinical studies. The number of retracted research articles reached as high as 6,107 in 2023, which represents 90% of all retractions that year.

The results show paper mill papers could be found from around the world, but the highest concentration came from China by far (9,137), representing 87.8% of all identified paper mill papers. The study identified over 97,093 co-author pairs from across the world in these papers. The ten countries with the highest number of retraction cases identified in the Retraction Watch database are China (9,137), Ethiopia (293), India (156), Pakistan (86), Saudi Arabia (83), Bangladesh (79), Egypt (64), South Korea (47), Australia (39), and Iran (35).
 

Source https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-026-05751-6#Sec6

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