Blog

  • New in Signals: detect invalid references, monitor research integrity trends, and more

    New in Signals: detect invalid references, monitor research integrity trends, and more

    It’s a new year, and Signals has a new look. Check out the app to see our sleek new design and sample Publisher Dashboard. Alongside many UI improvements, we have been busy developing many new capabilities for Signals Manuscript Checks and the Publisher Dashboard. The updates will help our Publisher partners improve their screening of

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  • FASEB Partners with Signals to Strengthen Research Integrity Across Its Journals

    FASEB Partners with Signals to Strengthen Research Integrity Across Its Journals

    JMIR Publications is pleased to announce an agreement with Signals Manuscript Checks to leverage their tool across their entire portfolio.

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  • JMIR Publications Partners with Signals to Strengthen Research Integrity Across Its Portfolio

    JMIR Publications Partners with Signals to Strengthen Research Integrity Across Its Portfolio

    JMIR Publications is pleased to announce an agreement with Signals Manuscript Checks to leverage their tool across their entire portfolio.

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  • Hum and Signals Collaborate to Enhance Alchemist Review

    Hum and Signals Collaborate to Enhance Alchemist Review

    Signals Data Graph will power Alchemist Review’s reviewer recommender, enabling faster, more accurate results.

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  • Signals Manuscript Checks now spot image integrity issues with Imagetwin partnership

    Signals Manuscript Checks now spot image integrity issues with Imagetwin partnership

    Global Campus and Signals announce a new partnership to helping publishers select high-quality, trustworthy reviewers.

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  • Aries Systems and Signals Partner to Strengthen the Efficiency and Accuracy of Research Integrity Checks

    Aries Systems and Signals Partner to Strengthen the Efficiency and Accuracy of Research Integrity Checks

    September 3, 2025 | North Andover, Massachusetts Aries Systems Corporation, a leading provider of workflow management technologies for the scholarly publishing community, and Research Signals Limited (Signals), a research integrity solutions provider, are pleased to announce their partnership to empower journals to identify and prevent the publication of problematic manuscripts to restore trust in research.

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  • Global Campus and Signals Partner to Enhance Research Integrity in Peer Review

    Global Campus and Signals Partner to Enhance Research Integrity in Peer Review

    Global Campus and Signals announce a new partnership to helping publishers select high-quality, trustworthy reviewers.

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  • Signals Announces Innovative Research Integrity Badge and Key Partnerships to Empower Researchers

    Signals Announces Innovative Research Integrity Badge and Key Partnerships to Empower Researchers

    In a recent ORCID Research Integrity poll, 67% of researchers admitted to skipping an article due to trust concerns. This is why we are thrilled to announce the launch of the Signals Badge. Researchers can now prioritize high-quality literature to use in their own work and avoid problematic articles with research integrity issues through this

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  • New signal detects tortured phrases in manuscript submissions

    New signal detects tortured phrases in manuscript submissions

    Signals now scans journal submissions for tortured phrases, helping editors and research integrity teams quickly spot these issues early in the publishing process. These unusual and often nonsensical phrases are used in place of standard academic terms — a couple of examples include “man-made consciousness” instead of “artificial intelligence”, and “bosom peril” instead of “breast

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  • Signals Launches Sleuth AI

    Signals Launches Sleuth AI

    Introducing Sleuth AI:  Signals’ AI-powered research integrity assistant  We’re excited to launch the next generation of research integrity evaluation. Sleuth AI transforms how editorial and research integrity teams investigate manuscripts — turning hours of manual analysis into minutes of intelligent, interactive exploration. Ask questions, uncover evidence, detect potential issues — all with the transparency and

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  • New signal spots risky email domains

    New signal spots risky email domains

    We’re pleased to announce our newest signal — risky email domains.  This signal is designed to help publishers further reduce research integrity risks and protect the quality of the scholarly record by identifying a subtle issue related to author identity and manuscript provenance. When a manuscript is uploaded to Signals, it extracts the authors’ email

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  • Fake attributions: a persistent and evolving research integrity problem

    Fake attributions: a persistent and evolving research integrity problem

    In the 1980s, Robert Slutsky and John Darsee were two of the most prolific authors in medical research. At the University of California San Diego, Slutsky was publishing one article every ten days. On the other side of the US, at Harvard Medical School, Darsee was still in his early 30s but had already published

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  • Research Fraud at MIT: High-Profile Study Was Too Good to Be True

    Research Fraud at MIT: High-Profile Study Was Too Good to Be True

    Another day, another case of high-profile research fraud.  An internal review at MIT has concluded that a paper submitted by a PhD student should be withdrawn from both arXiv and The Quarterly Journal of Economics, where it was submitted for publication. This is no normal first-year PhD paper. The article attracted coverage from The Wall

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  • Expert perspective:  Wu Guangheng Looks at the Future of Research Integrity

    Expert perspective: Wu Guangheng Looks at the Future of Research Integrity

    In late February we gave a presentation on the Future of Research Integrity at the Researcher to Reader Conference in London. In preparation we sought opinions and insights from leading research integrity sleuths, many of whom were generous with their time and expertise. Among these was Wu Guangheng, Ph.D, founder president of the 5GH Foundation,

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  • Article Collections: Your Custom View of Research Integrity

    Article Collections: Your Custom View of Research Integrity

    At Signals, we evaluate the credibility of any article or manuscript using the Signals Data Graph, which stores and analyzes the world’s publication data and combines it with expert knowledge. Because we can evaluate every article, we can also aggregate these evaluations to provide insights across journals or institutions. This helps publishers quickly identify, understand,

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  • The future of research integrity: insights from the audience at Researcher to Reader

    The future of research integrity: insights from the audience at Researcher to Reader

    Last week, Nicko and I attended the Researcher to Reader conference in London. The event brings together researchers, publishers, and institutions, creating opportunities for interesting conversations and learning. We’re already looking forward to next year’s event.  During the conference, we gave a talk on ‘The Future of Research Integrity’. We highlighted historic cases of research

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  • Signals launches Expert Contributions: amplifying insights from the community to restore trust in research

    Signals launches Expert Contributions: amplifying insights from the community to restore trust in research

    Specialized research communities hold knowledge that, if shared more widely, could transform how we identify trustworthy and valuable research. So we’re excited to introduce Expert Contributions, a new Signals’ initiative designed to amplify the insights of researchers, sleuths, and subject-matter experts. These contributions add critical as well as positive insights on individual articles, helping the

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  • You don’t know what you don’t know: how Signals helps publishers understand research integrity in their journals

    You don’t know what you don’t know: how Signals helps publishers understand research integrity in their journals

    One of the most interesting parts of building Signals is that we have a comprehensive view of research integrity across the publishing landscape, and can pinpoint specific issues impacting journals and publishers. The Signals Data Graph, which networks billions of nodes of publication data, enables us to see which journals have no or few research

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  • Signals completes funding round to accelerate its mission to restore trust in research

    Signals completes funding round to accelerate its mission to restore trust in research

    We’re excited to share that we have completed our first funding round, bringing together a key group of angel investors who believe in our mission to restore trust in research. Their investment enables us to launch the Signals Data Graph and expand our offerings, providing comprehensive support to publishers in the rapidly evolving research integrity

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  • Signals Named Finalist for the 2024 Vesalius Innovation Award

    Signals Named Finalist for the 2024 Vesalius Innovation Award

    We’re excited to share that Signals has been selected as a finalist for this year’s Vesalius Innovation Award! The Vesalius Innovation Award offers a unique opportunity to promote innovation, so it’s great to see research integrity highlighted as a key focus for this year’s award. Upholding trust and credibility in science communication is more critical

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  • Nicko Goncharoff joins Signals as Co-Founder

    Nicko Goncharoff joins Signals as Co-Founder

    I suppose almost every post in which someone starts a new role mentions how “excited” they are. So I’ve tried to think of a different adjective to describe my feelings about this next step in my career. But really there is no better word. So, with that said, I’m very excited to announce that I’ve

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  • New signals to provide insight on the integrity of authors institutions

    New signals to provide insight on the integrity of authors institutions

    Institution integrity We’re excited to release a set of new signals related to authors’ institutions.  To help protect the reputation of journals and speed up author checks, Signals now highlights when authors are affiliated with institutions with high rates of ‘problematic retractions’ (retractions due to fraud, including papermills).  These signals help editors to make informed decisions

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  • Signals Named Finalist for the 2024 ALPSP Award for Innovation in Publishing

    Signals Named Finalist for the 2024 ALPSP Award for Innovation in Publishing

    We are thrilled to announce that Signals is a finalist for The ALPSP Award for Innovation in Publishing 2024. This recognition highlights the importance of the work we are doing to restore trust in research. We are grateful for this acknowledgement of our efforts so far. With three out of the four finalists addressing research

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  • Problematic Paper Screener: a new signal to help protect research integrity

    Problematic Paper Screener: a new signal to help protect research integrity

    Signals from the community Publication fraud is harming trust in research. To help protect the integrity of the scholarly record and restore trust in research many researchers and sleuths comb the literature to identify patterns and markers of fraud in research articles, and some build tools to enhance these efforts. The Problematic Paper Screener, an

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  • Signals joins United2Act

    Signals joins United2Act

    We’re pleased to announce that Signals has become a signatory of United2Act. Collective action against paper mills is essential for protecting the integrity of the scholarly record, a vital step in restoring trust in research. We look forward to working closely with the research community to address the paper mill problem and to continue providing

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  • Introducing Signals

    Introducing Signals

    Trust is at an all-time low More people than ever question whether they can trust our most important institutions. This isn’t a new concern; trust has been in decline for decades. However, we have always been able to rely on the foundational and self-correcting nature of scholarly literature as a source of truth. This is

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  • Florin Asăvoaie joins Signals as Lead Engineer

    Florin Asăvoaie joins Signals as Lead Engineer

    We’re excited to announce that Florin Asăvoaie has joined Signals as Lead Engineer. Florin was the Solutions Architect of Hindawi’s Phenom publishing platform, acquired by Wiley in 2021, and is the technical & product development advisor for sustainable software products. With his engineering expertise and industry experience, Florin is already making an impact, accelerating our

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  • Tiago Barros joins Signals as Founding Member

    Tiago Barros joins Signals as Founding Member

    We’re excited to announce that Tiago Barros has joined the Signals team as Founding Member. Tiago will bring his expertise in publishing, peer review and creating products for publishers and researchers to our team. Previously, Tiago had different roles in publishing and tech startups, including VP of H1 Connect at H1, Managing Director of Faculty

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  • Signals Lead Analyst, Christos Petrou, guest post in Scholarly Kitchen

    Signals Lead Analyst, Christos Petrou, guest post in Scholarly Kitchen

    Signals Lead Analyst, Christos Petrou, has written a guest post for the Scholarly Kitchen on retractions and research misconduct. A few key takeaways include: Read the full article in The Scholarly Kitchen:

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  • Christos Petrou joins Signals as Lead Analyst

    Christos Petrou joins Signals as Lead Analyst

    We’re pleased to announce that Christos Petrou will be joining Signals, alongside founders Andrew Preston and Elliott Lumb, in our mission to restore trust in research. Christos will join Signals as Lead Analyst. His deep understanding of scholarly communication and analytical expertise will help us identify new signals and enable us to provide publishers with

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  • Correcting the record: retracting papermill articles

    Correcting the record: retracting papermill articles

    In 2023, the scholarly literature had the highest number of retractions ever seen in a single year, driven by over 8000 retractions at Hindawi. The large set of retractions were fraudulent articles created by papermills and published after Wiley acquired Hindawi in 2021. The consequences of this have been huge for Wiley, and the industry

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