Abstract Scientific publishing faces a credibility crisis driven to a very large extent by predatory journals, paper mills, and exploitative open-access (OA) practices. Structural pressures—publish-or-perish culture, mandatory OA policies, and author publication charges (APC)-driven business models—fuel the proliferation of low-quality or fraudulent research, now exacerbated by artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content. This Opinion, which aligns with a growing clamour from the research community—calls for an international journal accreditation system, guided by a transparent code of conduct and enforced by funding agencies, to restore integrity, prioritize quality over quantity for professional progression, and safeguard trust in scientific communication.
Lorenzo et al. (2025) studied this question.
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