Sage has retracted 416 articles from the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems (JIFS), which had a mass retraction of over 450 papers last August. Before the mass retraction last year Sage paused publication of new articles from the journal, which it acquired when it bought IOS Press in 2023. The journal is now accepting new submissions, according to a Sage spokesperson.
The retraction notice mentions citation and referencing "anomalies", "incoherent, extraneous text and tortured phrases" and "unverifiable authors and reviewers", among other signs of misconduct. Most of the researchers are from universities in India and China.
The editor in chief of the journal, Reza Langari of Texas A&M University in College Station, resigned last June. He told us at the time his decision was "due to differences of opinion on how to proceed". He told us growth in the AI field, which the journal covers, meant they received over 10,000 submissions in 2023 and rejected over 80% of them, "some of which were clearly manufactured by paper mills or else using AI tools". Sage was aware of issues with the journal before acquiring IOS Press, the publisher’s spokesperson said in August.
More: https://retractionwatch.com/2025/01/31/sage-journal-retracts-another-400-papers/
