Recognition and Support of Legitimate Emerging Journals Should Help in the Fight against the Danger of Predatory Journals

The open access journalism expanded the publication market by a huge order of magnitude.[1] There are arguments and reservations about the open-access model. Detailed discussion of its merits and loopholes are beyond the scope of this commentary but have been addressed amply elsewhere.[2] By the nature of the open-access model, the number of journals has increased significantly. However, some of these entities (known as predatory journals) disregard the principles of good scientific practice, treating the academic publishing market primarily as a business opportunity rather than a platform for genuine scholarly communication.[3] These predatory journals impose a minimal article processing charge on authors but lack the essential characteristics of legitimate scholarly journals, such as rigorous peer review, proper editing, established editorial boards, and other editorial standards. This raises numerous new ethical concerns in the realm of journal publishing. Publishing research findings in such journals harms the authors and weakens public confidence in scientific research.[3] Ethical issues around predatory journals include misrepresentation, lack of editorial and publishing standards and practices, academic deception, wasted study and funding, lack of archived content, and undermining confidence in research literature.[4] Typically, predatory journals offer fast publication of manuscripts they receive that are incompatible with the time usually required for a serious review process. They do not provide transparent costing lists and post misleading or false information about indicators, especially impact factors. They may even list academics on their boards without their knowledge and even against their will. Finally, these entities are well known for conducting aggressive marketing, for example, by mass mailing personalized e-mails to potential authors. A major concern is the targeting of authors and aspiring academics in developing regions.[5] These were shown to have variable awareness, making them more likely to fall prey to these entities.[6] [7] Therefore, it is essential for the academic community—consisting of authors, institutions, editors, and publishers—to support only genuine scholarly research. This means avoiding publication in predatory journals, refraining from serving as their editors or on editorial boards, and ensuring that faculty members do not publish in these journals knowingly without facing consequences.[5]

The great deal of effort to combat this movement is reflected in the volume of work published in the last decade.[8] Nonetheless, predatory entities are increasing and were recently estimated to be over 15,000 ([Fig. 1]). A recent commentary published in Lancet addressed how best to fight the danger of the rise of predatory journalism and what can be done to protect their prey. It was simultaneously published in several established member journals of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).[9] This comment approached the issue from three viewpoints: authors, institutions, and funders, as well as editors and publishers. The authors put forward several practical recommendations for all stakeholders, which are particularly valuable to adopt and share, especially among younger colleagues.[9] However, the authors did not clearly differentiate between obviously or probably predatory journals and legitimate journals that are owned or supported by groups and institutions from developing regions, particularly those that have yet to be included in internationally recognized databases like Scopus, PubMed, and Medline.

Fig. 1 The increasing number of articles in the PubMed databases found by using the following search query: (“Predatory Journals”) OR (“Predatory publishing”) OR (“Predatory Publishers”) between 2012 and 2024. Data Retrieved on February 6, 2025.

Another perspective missed is the lack of recognition of international databases of many legitimate emerging journals from developing regions. This is partly caused by the publishers' lack of confidence in these journals, which leads to delayed support for indexation applications despite their long track record of publishing. For instance, the Ibnosina Journal of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, which I co-edit, has been publishing consistently since 2009 but is still out in the cold. A second reason is the overwhelming number of subtitles produced by established brands (i.e., clones) owned by major commercial publishing houses relaying on their huge publishing machinery. They tended to saturate the indexation systems with their numerous applications and had limited time and personnel to review them. This results in an inequity in the opportunities for indexation between journals from the North and South. The lack of indexation for legitimate emerging journals has several complications. First, it distances potential authors who want to be acknowledged in indexed journals. Second, regional institutions prevent potential regional and local authors from publishing in these journals by insisting on indexation and, even worse, on a minimum impact factor. This scenario leads to a vicious cycle.[10]

By resolving these issues, platforms can be created for peer-reviewed communications addressing local and regional matters. Many researchers' previous experiences confirm that such problems are more likely to be rejected by “international” indexed journals or pushed aside to Gold open-access journals.

With the right support and a welcoming approach from international indexing organizations and regional institutions, legitimate emerging journals can play a significant role in combating the predatory movement. By doing so, they can attract more regional authors whose interests may be perceived, justly or unjustly, as less relevant to international audiences.[10]

Finally, I will finish by quoting my appeal in my comment in the Annals of Internal Medicine editorial: “Please support emerging journals from developing regions; they will help fight against predatory journals. We are all suffering from it, so let us fight together.”[11]

Conflict of Interest

The author is the EIC of the Journal of Diabetes and Endocrine Practice and Deputy Editor of Ibnosina Journal of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

• References

• 1 Gannon F. Unintended consequences of changes to open access and the impact factor. EMBO Rep 2024; 25 (07) 2815-2816
• 2 Baker EF, Iserson KV, Aswegan AL, Larkin GL, Derse AR, Kraus CK. American College of Emergency Physicians Ethics Committee. Open access medical journals: promise, perils, and pitfalls. Acad Med 2019; 94 (05) 634-639
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• 10 Beshyah SA. Charity starts at home: emerging journals should receive “positive discrimination” by their regional academia. Ibnosina J Med Biomed Sci 2021; 13: 156-160
• 11 Beshyah SA. . Comment: Support for genuine emerging journals should help fight predatory journals. 2025. Accessed February 6, 2025: https://www.acpjournals.org/do/10.5555/c7bc68fe-60d2-403e-89c3-d1d4225da0b1/abs/

Publication History

Received: 06 February 2025

Accepted: 06 February 2025

Article published online:
16 April 2025