Predatory Journals and the Integrity of Scholarly Publishing: Challenges, Consequences, and Strategies for Sustainable Research Quality

Abstract Scholarly publishing sits at the heart of how knowledge is verified, disseminated, and preserved, yet this foundation is increasingly compromised by fraudulent operations mimicking legitimate journals while abandoning genuine peer review, a crisis addressed in "Predatory Journals and the Integrity of Scholarly Publishing: Challenges, Consequences, and Strategies for Sustainable Research Quality." The paper examined practices distinguishing predatory journals from legitimate outlets, assessed the challenges they pose to credibility and quality assurance mechanisms, evaluated their consequences for researchers, institutions, and the scientific record, and proposed strategies for safeguarding sustainable research quality. Anchored in Spence's Signalling Theory, which frames predatory publishing as counterfeited rather than absent quality signalling, the study adopted a narrative/integrative approach complemented by four empirical studies spanning Jordan, North America, anaesthesiology and critical care journals, and nineteen countries. Findings of the paper revealed that predatory publishing as a graduated spectrum rather than a uniform category, database contamination through hijacked journals undermining the infrastructure researchers rely upon, consequences falling unevenly across institutions and regions, particularly Asia and Africa, and no single intervention, whether individual verification, institutional policy, or database auditing, proving sufficient alone. The paper concluded that safeguarding research quality demands coordinated action across individual, institutional, and infrastructural levels simultaneously, since predatory publishing persists wherever counterfeiting credibility remains cheap. It recommended mandatory researcher training on identifying predatory outlets, proactive database-level verification protocols, and transparent appeals processes accompanying any blacklisting or funding restriction.