Retraction notices—the explanatory statements published alongside papers retracted from the literature—have in some cases become clearer and easier to access, according to a study that examined hundreds of such notices.

The results last month inAccountability in Researchpublished show only modest progress over a ten-year period and are limited in scope 1. But the work underscores the need for publishers to agree on more consistent policies and commit to greater transparency, the authors say.

“We rely on science and technology to make decisions,” says co-author Misha Angrist, a science policy researcher at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. “If any aspect of this turns out to be incorrect, whether due to malicious behavior or an innocent mistake, we want the retraction to be in the same font size and easily accessible and easy to understand.”

Guidelines, not rules

Papers may be retracted by their authors or publishers for a variety of reasons, including honest errors, author disputes, or issues arising from research misuse. Magazines began publishing withdrawal notices in the 1970s, but there are no hard and fast rules for writing a withdrawal.

In 2009, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), an association of journal editors and publishers in Eastleigh, UK, published volunteers Guidelines on withdrawals, including what should be included in the notices. Then in 2015, the media organization releasedRetraction watch, which tracks paper withdrawals, Recommendations about what should be included in a withdrawal statement. These suggest that notices include a clear explanation of why a paper was retracted, mention when the journal was first made aware of potential problems, and indicate whether other papers are affected.

“It's really important to include everything that might have happened after publication,” including reports of failed attempts to replicate the research and criticisms on discussion platforms, says Frédérique Bordignon, who studies research integrity practices at the Paris Institute of Technology. Without clear, easily accessible retraction guidance, researchers risk “relying on something that is no longer reliable,” she adds.

To examine whether the various policies led to improvements, Angrist and colleagues used the Retraction Watch database to identify 768 retraction announcements from two publishers - Springer (now part of Springer Nature) and Wiley - in 2010, 2015 and 2020. (The newsroom ofNatureis editorially independent of its publisher.) The researchers developed a rating system based on the COPE guidelines and Retraction Watch recommendations and rated each retraction statement on a scale of zero to two.

The evaluation criteria included whether the references were freely available, rather than hidden behind a paywall, and were accessible – that is, linked to the paper. They also considered whether the notices contained important information, such as detailed reasons for the retraction, the results or status of investigations into possible misconduct, details about which specific parts of a paper are invalid, and who initiated the retraction.

The analysis found that ratings of Springer's retractions improved from 2010 to 2020, for example, the clue accessibility score increased from 1.25 in 2010 to 1.9 in 2020. However, they remained low in some categories, such as recognition of investigations (0.25 in 2020). Wiley's withdrawal indicators did not improve over time, scoring lower in some categories in 2020 than in 2010, including disclosure of reasons for withdrawals (1.61 in 2020 compared to 1.73 in 2010) and accessibility of notices (1.29 in 2020 compared to 1.63 in 2010).

Limited study

The authors acknowledge that their analysis is limited and does not cover withdrawal statements published since 2020. A study of recent withdrawal notices could provide a better understanding of how well current policies and standards are working, they note. The number of withdrawals is increasing rapidly – last year there was a record, with over 10,000 papers withdrawn.

“It is a pilot study as we had a limited amount of time and bandwidth to do this, but I think our work is ready to be built upon,” says Angrist.

“We have worked to ensure that our withdrawal notes have a consistent structure over the last few years,” says Chris Graf, director of research integrity at Springer Nature in London. The publisher's current criteria for withdrawal notices "provide transparency and consistency while being manageable" and "go beyond the guidelines established by COPE," he adds. It's not always possible to mention research conducted by the authors' institutions, "either because it was confidential or because it wasn't done at all," he says. “Most of the retractions we publish are not the result of or accompanied by an institutional investigation.”

“Wiley supports the call for increased standardization of the withdrawal process, in addition to consistent application of existing frameworks,” said Michael Streeter, director of research integrity and publishing ethics at Wiley, based in Malden, Massachusetts. "Clearly identifying an article's retracted status is essential for readers and researchers. This is a core practice at Wiley."

The study calls on publishers to agree on criteria for publishing withdrawal notices. But “to what extent this applies to all magazines, all types of journals, all types of papers… the difficulty is huge,” says Bordignon. “It could be a long road.”