Cases of "Review for Pal" on Geological Journal
Previously, we and our allies exposed some researchers in Geography gained massive publications through their editor friends, or even through their self-editing [1-2], raising concerns about the conflict of interest in those articles. Up to recently, over 1,000 articles were found with such conflict of interest [3], and much more are undetected due to that the information about the handling editors was not disclosed with the published articles.
However, finding a friend to handle their manuscripts was the first step to allow their articles published much easier, with less rigorous peer review. Our recent investigation suggests that some of those articles were reviewed by authors' friends (Review for Pal), too.
10.1002/gj.3871
This article was published by M Ramkumar et. al. in 2020, and was handled by I Somerville, who had coauthorship with another author of this article, M Santosh, earlier than the publication of this article. The two reviewers also had connections to the authors. Before the publication of this article, P D Roy coauthored with M Ramkumar, while E H Ariffin coauthored with N A Siddiqui. During our investigation, an independent sleuth posted the linkage between E H Ariffin and N A Siddiqui on PubPeer [4], confirming the our outcome.
10.1002/gj.3800
This article was published by J Q Zhang et. al. in 2020, and was handled by L Tang. We notice both L Tang and M Santosh, one of the authors of this article, worked for a same institution, China University of Geosciences Beijing, and they had multiple coauthorship before the publication of this article, dated back to 2019. L Tang chose F Yang as a reviewer to this article. F Yang also had long history of coauthorship with M Santosh, which can date back to 2018. The name of the other reviewer was not disclosed.
10.1002/gj.3959
This article was published by C Manikyamba et. al. in 2020, and it was handled by L Tang with China University of Geosciences Beijing. For one hand, the handling editor L Tang had publication records with two of the authors, C Manikyamba and S Ganguly, earlier than the publication of this article. For the other hand, the two reviewers L Tang chose, E Shaji and K R Hari, also had publications with S Ganguly, one of the authors of this article, before or during the period of the publication of this article.
10.1002/gj.3918
This article was published by S P Verma et. al. in 2020, and was handled by J S Armstrong-Altrin. Armstrong-Altrin and Verma had a very long history of coauthorship before the publication of this article, and Armstrong-Altrin chose F Velasco-Tapia, another friend of Verma, to review this article. The name of the other reviewer was not disclosed.
10.1002/gj.3878
This article was published by M Z Iqbal et. al. in 2020, and was handled by S Li. One of the reviewers, S Y Yu, had strong linkage to one of the authors, Y J Liu. Both Yu and Liu worked for a same institution, Ocean University of China, and they had long history of coauthorship before and during the period of the publication of this article. The name of the other reviewer was not disclosed.
10.1002/gj.3864
This article was published by J Madhavaraju et. al. in 2020, and was handled by R Nagarajan. One of the reviewers, Paul-Desire Ndjigui, had coauthorship with one of the authors, J S Armstrong-Altrin. They coauthored in an article published in the same time of the publication of this article. Regarding to the other two reviewers, one of them was anonymous, and the other has no linkage to the authors of this article.
These six articles were listed on an Correction published by "Geological Journal", a Wiley title, early this month (May 8th, 2025). The Correction addresses the concerns in 98 articles coauthored by at least one of the associate editors of the journal, which may cause conflict of interest in the publications. Although the Correction states that "the [editorial and peer review] process was found to be sound, and the publisher considers the results presented in all affected articles to be reliable", but it was not. Our investigation reveals that some of the peer review process for those articles were affected with "Review for Pal", namely, the articles were reviewed by the friends of the authors. The peer review process should had been supervised by the handling editors and/or the editor in chief of the journal, however, this process was affected partly because of "Edit for Pal", namely, the articles were handled by the friends of the authors. The potential conflict of interest in those articles is not only the issues that associate editors coauthored in them, but also "Edit for Pal" and "Review for Pal", which were not addressed on the Correction by the journal.
It is very hard to estimate how many articles were affected with "Review for Pal". Only 13 of those 98 articles have open peer review records, but 46% (6 of 13) of them were found to be reviewed by the friends of the authors. Considering the small size of the sample, it is impossible to reach a conclusion here, but this matter should be seriously investigated by the journal or the publisher.
Reference
[1] 5GH-WuGH-20240603.001 (in Chinese)
[3] Editor-Author Conflict of Interest Examples Posted on PubPeer
[4] PubPeer Comment on 10.1002/gj.3871
[5] 10.1002/gj.5230
