GoKawiilIEEE retracts 1,417 conference papers in single day over paper-mill links
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers announced on 28 October that it had retracted 1,417 conference papers in one batch on 23 October, after an external study linked them to paper mills selling authorship slots. The retraction notices state the papers 'may have been offered for sale,' and Nature's analysis found 1,622 of the 2,062 flagged papers have now been pulled, bringing IEEE's 2026 retraction total to nearly 3,000.
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Research-integrity specialists told Nature this is the largest single bulk retraction by any scholarly publisher, suggesting paper mills have infiltrated conference proceedings at scale even within a major engineering society. The speed and size of IEEE's response could pressure other publishers to scrutinize their own conference pipelines, though it also raises questions about how such volumes of fraudulent work passed peer review in the first place.
- IEEE retracted 1,417 conference papers on 23 October, the largest known single-day bulk retraction by a scholarly publisher.
- The papers were flagged by an external study tracing social-media paper-mill advertisements to published research.
- IEEE has retracted nearly 3,000 papers in total during 2026, according to Nature's analysis.
Source: nature.com — Naddaf, 2026-10-30
Published there as: “Record-breaking retraction: scholarly publisher pulls 1,400 conference papers on one day”
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