Researcher linked to paper mill activity mysteriously reappeared on list of journal’s editorial board

An engineer accused of being involved in paper mill activities mysteriously reappeared on a list of editorial board members at Springer Nature’s Scientific Reports earlier this year, Retraction Watch has learned.

The journal had “parted ways” with the engineer, Masoud Afrand of the Islamic Azad University in Iran, in March 2022 after an internal audit found “irregularities” in how he handled papers, editor-in-chief Rafal Marszalek told us last year. 

Because of “an oversight,” however, Afrand remained on the publication’s website until a story by Retraction Watch and Undark raised concerns about his work last year. 

Our story quoted sleuth Alexander Magazinov saying Afrand “was likely part of a paper mill operation for a special issue in Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences,” in which Afrand was cited more than 130 times. Magazinov later expanded on his suspicions in a comment on our site. 

But at some point this year, Afrand, who has not responded to emails seeking comment, was back on Scientific Reports’ website. 

In a December 15 email copying Retraction Watch and fellow sleuth Dorothy Bishop, among others, Magazinov wrote to Marszalek to ask why Afrand had apparently been reinstated. Marszalek replied:

Dr Afrand left Scientific Reports Editorial Board in 2022, and this remains true to this day (i.e. he has not been re-instated). However, as a result of clerical mistakes, he was not removed from our homepage (though has been properly retired in 2022 from all other systems), and this has been rectified now.

Bishop countered in a December 16 email to Marszalek that:

contrary to what you say, Dr Afrand was removed from the home Editors webpage in 2022, and was still absent in June 2024 [as evidenced by this archived webpage]. However, his name did reappear some time in the summer of 2024. I checked with the Wayback machine, and he was absent from the list at the start of 2024 through to June 2024, but was present in September 2024 […] This is a strange kind of clerical error.

Marszalek offered no explanation, telling Bishop only:

I appreciate you flagging that. At this point I can only confirm that Dr Afrand has not been a member of Scientific Reports Editorial Board and has not handled any content since 2022. 

Marszalek told us he did not have “much more to add than what I told Dr Bishop.”

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