Guest editors in science journals: a growing concern for research quality

Journals often rely on guest editors to organize special issues, but this practice has raised serious questions about research reliability. A recent case saw a journal pull nearly all papers from a cancer immunotherapy issue after finding major flaws in peer review. While these issues gained attention for their scale, they also highlight a deeper problem in academic publishing: special issues sometimes prioritize quantity over quality. Critics argue that journals push these editions to boost their income and researchers’ résumés, even if it weakens scientific standards. In 2024 alone, one major publisher had to retract 34 papers from special issues due to weak oversight. Ivan Oransky, who tracks retractions, calls this a predictable outcome. "If a system has gaps, bad actors will find ways to exploit them, " he explains. His database shows that thousands of retractions involve papers likely produced by "paper mills"—and many appear in special issues.The guest editor model started innocently enough, as a way to honor scientists or highlight conference findings. But digital publishing and open-access fees changed everything. Instead of charging readers to access papers, journals now charge researchers to publish. This shift turned special issues into profit centers. Between 2016 and 2022, some publishers saw a massive surge in these editions. One study found that for certain publishers, one in five articles now comes from special issues. Peer review, meant to filter flawed studies, often works differently in these cases. Special issues tend to accept papers faster and reject fewer submissions. Paolo Crosetto, an economist, compares the system to a pyramid scheme: "Guest editors bring in their own colleagues, who trust them, and the publisher gains more papers—all while trusting the guest editor to do the vetting. " His research found that in over 10% of special issues, the guest editor wrote more than a third of the papers. Some efforts are underway to fix this. Funding agencies now question how much researchers spend on publishing fees. One major research institute now requires scientists to share their work publicly before submitting to journals. Bodo Stern of the institute says, "When journals become status symbols, bad habits spread. " The goal? Shift focus back to real scientific merit.