What the Collapse of Hindawi Reveals About Systemic Risk in Scholarly Communication

Over the past decade, Hindawi expanded rapidly from a small open access (OA) publisher into a large, multi-journal operation publishing tens of thousands of articles annually. This period of growth coincided with an increase in submissions later linked to paper mills. By 2023–2024, public reporting documented that more than 8,000 articles across a broad range of Hindawi journals were affected, prompting one of the largest coordinated retraction efforts in scholarly publishing to date (Kincaid, 2023-a). Earlier stages of this process included plans to retract more than 1,200 papers due to compromised peer review (Kincaid, 2023-b).

Available reporting further indicates that these articles were distributed across much of the Hindawi portfolio rather than confined to a small number of titles, suggesting challenges that extended beyond isolated editorial issues (Kincaid, 2023-a).

In response to these integrity concerns, Wiley, which had acquired Hindawi in January 2021 and integrated it into its OA publishing portfolio, announced the discontinuation of multiple journals following delisting and investigations related to paper mill activity (King, 2024).

The Hindawi case represents one of the most significant integrity-related disruptions in contemporary scholarly publishing. Retractions and editorial failures are not new, nor are they limited to any one publishing model. What distinguishes this case is the scale, visibility, and cumulative impact of the retractions and journal closures.

My efforts to gather first-hand perspectives from former editors and staff—including invitations for anonymized conversations—were unsuccessful. While such reluctance is not unusual in large-scale integrity cases, it limits opportunities for shared understanding of how such failures develop and how they might be prevented.

Still, a review of the public record of the incident offers valuable lessons.

Why It Happened

It would be overly simplistic to attribute Hindawi’s situation to a single decision or moment. Public reflections from former leadership point instead to a convergence of structural pressures, including rapid volume-driven growth, increasing reliance on automated and outsourced workflows, and the evolving sophistication of paper mills (Peters, n.d.).

Reporting suggests that several of the conditions enabling large-scale publication of compromised articles—including the rapid expansion of special issues, overstretched editorial oversight, and early signs of coordinated peer-review manipulation—were already emerging before Hindawi’s acquisition. The new ownership may not have been fully aware of the scale and embedded nature of the paper mill–related issues, nor able to mitigate them effectively at an early stage of the acquisition (Kincaid, 2023-a; Kincaid, 2023-b). This observation raises wider questions about how integrity risks are assessed and prioritized during periods of expansion and organizational change.

Independent investigations and peer-reviewed research further demonstrate that paper mills now operate at industrial scale, supplying manuscripts, fabricated reviewer identities, and coordinated submission strategies that are increasingly difficult to detect prior to publication (STM Association, n.d.; Richardson et al., 2025). These dynamics are not unique to Hindawi and have been observed across multiple publishing contexts.

The Time-Lag Problem: When Detection Trails Publication

A recurring feature of large-scale integrity failures is the delay between publication and detection. Articles later identified as compromised may remain part of the scholarly record for extended periods, during which they can be cited or used in evaluation processes.

Recent large-scale studies document the persistence and breadth of fraudulent publication patterns across disciplines and publishers, highlighting how deeply embedded such practices have become (Richardson et al., 2025). In 2023 alone, more than 10,000 research papers were retracted globally, marking a record year for retractions and underscoring the cumulative nature of these challenges (van Noorden, 2023).

Detection systems across scholarly publishing remain largely reactive, often responding only after publication. At scale, this approach limits early warning and places even well-resourced publishers at risk of delayed recognition of systemic issues.

Incentives, Indexation, and Author Pressures

For many researchers, particularly those working within highly metric-driven assessment systems, incentives are closely tied to publication quantity, speed, and journal indexation. Journals indexed in databases such as Web of Science or Scopus are frequently treated as indicators of quality in hiring, promotion, and funding decisions, despite growing recognition that indexation alone does not guarantee editorial rigor.

In such environments, pressures to publish can outweigh careful consideration of journal governance or peer-review robustness. This dynamic may unintentionally reinforce models in which scale is rewarded and scrutiny is deferred, allowing weaknesses to persist until they become visible at volume (STM Association, n.d.; Brundy, 2024).

Governance and Oversight After Acquisition

The Hindawi case also raises broader questions about governance and accountability following acquisition. Corporate ownership can bring investment, infrastructure, and resources, but it can also introduce complexity in how responsibility for editorial integrity is distributed.

When operational autonomy, editorial control, and corporate oversight are shared across entities, accountability can become diffuse. The assumption that consolidation automatically strengthens integrity therefore warrants closer examination. The Hindawi experience suggests that governance structures—rather than ownership alone—play a critical role in determining whether integrity risks are identified early or managed only once they become visible.

The Community Deadlock: When Silence Replaces Learning

Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the Hindawi episode is not the failure itself, but the limited space for collective reflection that followed. Large integrity incidents in scholarly publishing are often addressed through internal reviews and formal notices, with comparatively little public discussion of underlying causes.

This pattern contributes to a systemic deadlock:

• Without open analysis, structural vulnerabilities are less likely to be identified and addressed
• Without shared learning, similar failures risk recurring in different publishing contexts
• Without visible accountability, responsibility becomes diffuse and difficult to locate

Investigative reporting has shown that paper mill activity affects a wide range of journals and publishers, yet discussions often remain fragmented and episodic rather than sustained and systemic (Subbaraman, 2024). While caution and legal considerations are understandable, limited openness can reduce the system’s ability to adapt. When handled responsibly, transparency functions not as an assignment of blame, but as a mechanism for prevention and collective learning.

If a Large Publisher Can Struggle, What Does That Signal?

Hindawi was not a peripheral or inexperienced publisher. It operated at global scale, supported thousands of editors and reviewers, and maintained substantial technical infrastructure. If an organization of this size encountered such challenges, the implication is not exceptional failure, but broader systemic exposure.

This prompts important questions for the scholarly community:

• Are current integrity safeguards proportionate to the scale and speed of contemporary publishing?
• Do existing incentive structures support early detection, or do they favor post-publication correction?
• To what extent does reputation substitute for demonstrable integrity capacity in assessment and trust-building?

The Hindawi case suggests that resilience cannot be inferred from size, longevity, or business model alone.

Uneven Consequences: Authors, Editors, and Global Equity

The consequences of large-scale retractions are not evenly distributed. Authors publishing from under-resourced institutions or regions facing intense publication pressure may experience disproportionate reputational and career impacts when journals are discontinued or articles are withdrawn. Editors and reviewers associated with affected journals may also face professional uncertainty, even when acting in good faith.

In many cases, authors receive limited guidance or institutional support following retractions, including situations where no individual misconduct is attributed. Integrity failures therefore risk amplifying existing inequities in global research systems, transforming structural weaknesses into individual setbacks.

Shared Responsibility Across the Scholarly Ecosystem

The Hindawi experience underscores that accountability in scholarly publishing is necessarily shared. While publishers play a central role, they operate within a broader ecosystem shaped by research assessment frameworks, institutional expectations, funding policies, and evaluation cultures.

Professional communities have increasingly emphasized the role of librarians and information professionals in strengthening integrity awareness, evaluation literacy, and access to practical tools that support responsible publishing decisions (van Noorden, 2023; Brundy, 2024). Meaningful progress depends on coordinated action across stakeholders:

• Publishers embedding integrity as a sustained operational priority
• Institutions and funders aligning incentives with research quality rather than output volume
• Librarians and information professionals supporting transparency and informed evaluation
• The scholarly community normalizing reflective discussion of failure as part of responsible knowledge stewardship

Learning Before the Next Collapse

The fall of Hindawi should not be understood solely as an extraordinary event, but as a signal of how ordinary pressures—scale, incentives, automation, and uneven accountability—can converge into systemic risk when left unexamined. Integrity breakdowns of this magnitude do not emerge overnight, nor are they confined to a single publisher, business model, or moment in time.

What is most unusual in the Hindawi case is not that challenges arose, but that they became visible. The greater risk for scholarly publishing lies in failures that remain insufficiently examined or quietly absorbed into institutional memory. When transparency is limited and learning remains fragmented, the conditions for repetition persist.

From an expert perspective, the most important lesson is not about assigning blame, but about preparedness. Systems designed primarily for growth, efficiency, and output may continue to expose vulnerabilities unless integrity is embedded as a foundational requirement rather than a reactive safeguard. The question facing scholarly publishing is no longer whether similar challenges will emerge, but whether the community is willing to learn collectively and act early enough to reduce their impact.

References

Brundy, C. (2024). The paper mill crisis and implications for scholarly publishing. UKSG Insights. https://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.659

Kincaid, E. (2023-a, December 19). Hindawi reveals process for retracting more than 8,000 paper mill articles. Retraction Watch. https://retractionwatch.com/2023/12/19/hindawi-reveals-process-for-retracting-more-than-8000-paper-mill-articles/

Kincaid, E. (2023-b, April 5). Wiley and Hindawi to retract 1,200 more papers for compromised peer review. Retraction Watch. https://retractionwatch.com/2023/04/05/wiley-and-hindawi-to-retract-1200-more-papers-for-compromised-peer-review/

King, A. (2024, June 12). Nineteen journals shut down by Wiley following delisting and paper mill problems. Chemistry World. https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/nineteen-journals-shut-down-by-wiley-following-delisting-and-paper-mill-problems/4019595.article

Peters, P. (n.d.). Midnight at the Casablanca [Podcast]. https://midnightatthecasablanca.com/

Richardson, R. A., Hong, S., Byrne, J., Stoeger, T., & Nunes Amaral, L.A. (2025). The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly. PNAS. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2420092122

STM Association. (n.d.). STM Integrity Hub. https://www.stm-assoc.org/stm-integrity-hub/

Subbaraman, N. (2024). Scientific journals fight fake paper mills. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/science/scientific-journals-fake-paper-mills-92e42230

van Noorden, R. (2023). More than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03974-8