Paper mills: Objects of fraud, mirrors of managerial governance

Paper mills reflect the multifaceted political, economic and social factors which account for the rise and development of perverse incentives in research communities: they are yet another example of how there is a demand for faking science. It is not just researchers writing articles who are incentivised to recur to fraudulent practices, but also those researchers reviewing articles. From this standpoint, paper mills are both objects of fraud, namely a fraudulent industry with a set of specific technologies and operational modalities, and a concrete reflection of the consequences of performance-oriented governance. The managerial character of research governance takes the form of new public-management-oriented policies, such as national-level performance-based funding (PBF) systems for higher education sectors (Jongbloed, 2001; Nobili & Turri, 2025). As resource allocation becomes performance-driven, research institutions mirror this approach in their internal practices, creating a vicious cycle of incentives which reward publication venues at the cost of publications’ research quality. Examples of this adaptation include cash-rewards for publications in indexed journals (Quan et al.,2017) and universities using the same formulae used by national evaluation agencies for distributing resources between university departments (CRUI, 2015). As this contribution discusses, evaluation systems have helped to transform bibliometric performance into an economic asset, whereby prestigious publication venues and quantities translate into higher chances of starting and continuing a research career. If we “reassemble” phenomena, following Latour (2005), we can draw connections between networks in the scientific environment and the technologies, such as platforms and indicators, which mediate research production and research behaviours. If we consider both the material and social drivers of specific configurations of ‘doing science’, we can better understand how and why the current scientific ecosystem allows paper mills to operate and succeed. Building on the insights and key questions for addressing research on paper mills presented by researchers (Byrne et al, 2024; Wittau & Seifert, 2024), this contribution presents an overview of the challenges of studying paper mills. Secondly, it critically approaches the issue by investigating the relationship between paper-mill activity and performance incentives driving publications, considering the Chinese context as an example, where providing cash-rewards based on journal metrics and indexation is a frequent practice and where the majority of global paper-mill activity is frequently signalled (Quan et al., 2017). Thirdly, positive examples countering paper mills and quantitative evaluation are discussed. It is argued that a closer analysis of the presence and workings of performance rewarding and evaluation practices can shed more light on the perverse incentives leading to fraud in academia. In light of increasing pressures for rejecting the publish or perish dynamics, this is ever more crucial.