Authors and Readers Need to Be Wary of Predatory Medical Titles and Focus on High-Quality Peer-Review Journals

Abstract

In January 2025, Laine et al. [1] published a very important editorial in a number of prestigious medical journals. It encouraged reputable journals to warn their readers and authors about the growing number of predatory entities that are misrepresenting themselves as scholarly journals. The authors, who are all editors and members of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, said that the organisation was constantly receiving queries about such journals. They estimated that there were as many as 15 000 in 2021. Many appear to be operating purely for financial gain, by offering extremely fast publication rates, rather than disseminating high-quality scientific research.

As a well-respected, peer-reviewed journal, with an established international reputation, we share the concerns raised by Laine et al. [1]. We thought it would be useful to explain to our readers and authors how Acta Paediatrica handles the manuscripts that we receive.

Our slogan is nurturing the child, and our aim is to publish high-quality research that can improve the health of children. Last year, we handled just over 1500 manuscripts and accepted about a third of them for publication. All these papers were carefully reviewed and many of them were resubmitted several times before we made our final decision. The integrity of the journal is paramount, and we depend on the superb work of our reviewers, who are experts in their fields and donate their precious time to scrutinising the work of other researchers. We are also indebted to our editorial staff, our senior, associate and adjunct editors and our statistical editor and language editor.

In this issue, we acknowledge the reviewers who played a key role in the journal in 2024. Our reviewers are driven by their sense of responsibility and duty as members of the international scientific community, as well as their interest in the messages in the papers they review. We are deeply grateful to them for their skills and dedication to paediatrics. Altruistic and anonymous reviewers are for science what blood donors are for surgery: It would not be possible to work without them. It is worrying that finding suitable reviewers has become a challenge for most journals. Peer reviews should be recognised as an integral part of research and requested, and recognised, by all high-quality research structures.

Acta Paediatrica was founded in Sweden in 1921 and is owned by Stiftelsen Acta Paediatrica, a foundation that is run by a board of recognised senior members of the research community. Our publisher, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., is one of the largest publishing houses in the world and provides the structures and technical skills needed for scientific publishing. Although Acta Paediatrica can claim an impressive heritage and track record, we know that that is not enough. That is why we constantly review our processes, to make sure that they are fit for purpose and continue to uphold the values of high-quality publishing. New journals will emerge and good journals can improve or lose their reputations. Online publishing, open access and artificial intelligence will continue to change the landscape of scientific publishing. The impact factor is one way of comparing journals. However, it is not such a good reflection of less dramatic medical topics, such as paediatrics, or late blooming papers with a longer half-life, such as clinical research.

The emergence of predatory journals is a challenge, as they seek to compete with reputable, established, peer-reviewed journals. Predatory journals tend to be more focused on financial returns and speed than scientific scrutiny. They handle surprisingly high numbers of manuscripts very quickly and typically commission special issues that temporary editors can invite their colleagues to submit to.

Sometimes the appearance of a journal can provide hints or confirm that it is a predatory journal, but there is no generally accepted definition. The Laine et al. editorial asked the thought-provoking question: Predatory journals—What can we do to protect their prey? [1]. The prey in this case are the authors, who are often young and ambitious. They may also be tempted to get their work published faster and without the detailed questions that can be raised by rigorous, but essential, review processes. Laine et al. point out that when predatory journal publishes less trustworthy research they ‘endanger authors, academic institutions, legitimate journals, legitimate publishers, the scholarly publishing process, science, and the public’ [1]. That is a grave concern for a profession that is proudly committed to the principle of do no harm.

All journals need to make ends meet. Most journals charge authors article processing fees, instead of expecting their readers to pick up the cost. In many countries, university libraries have signed agreements with publishers and pay the publication fees for their institution's affiliated researchers. These agreements are welcome, as they may provide incentives for authors to submit to reputable journals. In addition, skilled librarians can help by continuously updating the quality assessments of the journals their researchers have access to.

All journals occasionally make mistakes and reject a paper that is published in another journal and becomes heavily cited. And sometimes we accept a paper that has been rejected elsewhere and it proves very popular. This is, or was, the logic of scientific publishing. Authors often try their luck by submitting their papers to the highest ranked journal that may accept their manuscript. The success of the paper will then be measured by the attention it gets. But it is important to point out that excellent research that only interests a small audience, such as rare diseases, should also be published if the topic is relevant to the journal and its readership.

Acta Paediatrica is committed to the highest standards of medical scientific publishing. We will continue to approach the best reviewers for the papers we receive. We will strive to make the process as easy as we can for our authors and reviewers and this has included introducing a new submission system, the Research Exchange Platform. We will watch out for references to predatory journals. Our aim is to be both fast and accurate, but there is no way we can achieve the speed that some of the predatory journals boast of. At the end of the day, we will continue to produce a high-quality, reputable, peer-review journal that everyone can be proud of and learn from.

Annika Janson: conceptualization, writing – review and editing. Göran Wennergren: conceptualization. Hugo Lagercrantz: conceptualization.