(23 Sep 2026) Science of the Total Environment (STOTEN) has retracted 165 papers this year, most for “suspicious” changes in authorship or editorial conflicts of interest.
The retractions have come after STOTEN was delisted from Clarivate’s Web of Science in November after the index put it on hold due to concerns about article quality. The journal published over 10,000 articles in 2024; so far this year it has published fewer than 1,000.
The retractions, most of which were issued in August, applied to articles published from 2018 to 2025. At least 50 of the papers were handled by associate editors who had “an ongoing collaboration on a co-publication” or “an extensive record of collaboration” with the authors of the articles, according to the notices.
Other notices cite changes in authorship between submission and revised or published versions of the paper without approval from editors, a move which can indicate paper mill activity. Other reasons for retraction included plagiarism and tortured phrases and data concerns.
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