Wil Schilders, Peter Taylor, Luis Vega (on behalf of ICIAM)
In recent years, the mathematical sciences have faced growing threats to the integrity of research publishing. Practices such as paper mills, predatory journals, and citation cartels are eroding trust in our scientific ecosystem. At the same time, an overreliance on bibliometric indicators—impact factors, h-indices, and citation counts—has created perverse incentives that distort research behavior and evaluation.
To raise awareness and offer guidance, ICIAM and IMU have jointly produced two companion papers, with Ilka Agricola as the chair of the committee responsible for the them. The first, Fraudulent Publishing in the Mathematical Sciences, provides a detailed analysis of how fraudulent practices have emerged and spread, exposing their global scale and harmful impact on the credibility of mathematics. The second, How to Fight Fraudulent Publishing in the Mathematical Sciences: Joint Recommendations of the IMU and the ICIAM, offers concrete steps for policymakers, institutions, and individual researchers to identify and counter these practices, and to strengthen responsible research assessment.
These two publications, endorsed by the ICIAM Board and the IMU Executive Committee in May/June 2025, represent a call to action for the entire mathematical community.
Safeguarding the quality and integrity of mathematical research is a shared responsibility—one that requires vigilance, transparency, and commitment from all of us.
Both papers are freely available on the arXiv and appear in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society in autumn 2025.