**Objective** Retractions have been on the rise in the life and
clinical sciences in the last decade.1
 In this same period, there
has been a greater than 10-fold increase in the posting of
preprints by researchers in these fields.2
 These developments
have introduced challenges with respect to the back
propagation of events such as retractions that occur on the
journal-published version. The aim of this study was to
understand the extent of this problem among servers that
routinely link their preprints to their corollary versions
published in journals.

**Design** To present a snapshot of the current state of
downstream retractions of articles preprinted in 3 large
preprint servers (Research Square, bioRxiv, and medRxiv),
the DOIs of the journal-published versions linked to preprints
were matched to entries in the Retraction Watch database.
The analysis covered November 2013 to November 2021.
Preprints with downstream retractions were checked for (1) a
notice of the retraction and (2) a notice of withdrawal of the
preprint. The times from preprinting to publication and
publication to retraction were calculated, and the types of
misconduct (mistreatment of research subjects, falsification
and fabrication of data, and piracy and plagiarism) were
categorized for each retraction.

**Results** A total of 30 retractions were identified,
representing only 0.03% of all content with journal links
posted on these servers. Of these, 11 (36.7%) were clearly
noted by the preprint servers; however, the existence of a
preprint was only acknowledged by the retracting journal in 1
instance (3.3%). The mean time from publication to
retraction was 9.2 months, notably lower than the mean of
22.3 months for articles overall. In 20 of 30 cases (66.7%),
retractions downstream of preprints were due, at least in part,
to some form of research misconduct. In 18 of 30 cases
(60%), the nature of the retraction suggested that the
conclusions were no longer reliable.

**Conclusions** As adoption of preprints continues to grow,
serious consideration should be given to ensuring that
preprints are digitally connected with associated publications
and building reliable mechanisms for propagating critical
updates. It is incumbent on preprint servers, journals, and
the systems that connect them to address these issues before
their scale becomes untenable.

**References**
1. Steen RG, Casadevall A, Fang FC. Why has the number of
scientific retractions increased? PLoS ONE. 2013;8:e68397.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0068397
2. Vasconcelos GL, Cordeiro LP, Duarte-Filho GC, Brum AA.
Modeling the epidemic growth of preprints on COVID-19 and
SARS-CoV-2. Front Phys. Published online March 23, 2021.
doi:10.3389/fphy.2021.603502

**Conflict of Interest Disclosures**: At the time of this study,
Michele Avissar-Whiting was the editor in chief of the Research
Square preprint platform.

![](https://assets.underline.io/uploads/markdown_image/1/image/f9d130342698f00b4b6f52d08808af79.png)

Downstream Retraction of Preprinted Research in the Life and Medical Sciences

Preprints – generally defined as a publicly available version of a research manuscript prior to formal assessment and publication via a journal-mediated peer review process – are becoming a common feature in some research communities. Accelerated sharing of research findings, creating a citable research output to show evidence of research productivity, creating opportunities for community feedback and collaboration, and increased attention and citation are some of the ways preprints can benefit researchers (References 1-4). Preprints also create opportunities for publishers seeking to address pain points associated with lengthy peer review processes. To this end, since October 2018, Research Square has collaborated with Springer Nature to offer In Review, a preprint service that integrates preprint posting with ongoing journal peer review and provides transparency into the peer review process. In Review helps Nature authors rapidly share their research findings while also providing journal-mediated quality control checks on the posted preprint and transparency into the peer-review process. 

1) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2670247
2) https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.05238
3) https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0411275
4) https://elifesciences.org/articles/52646

In Review on Research Square: a journal-integrated preprint system for Springer Nature

This is an inperson poster session. If you are attending virtually please visit the individual poster pages and ask your questions in the chat box.

PS1 - Preprints

poster

Our aim is to encourage research into the quality and credibility of peer review and scientific publication, to establish the evidence base on which scientists can improve the conduct, reporting, and dissemination of scientific research.
 
 **Welcome!**
 
 The JAMA Network, The BMJ, and METRICS welcome you to the Ninth International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication. We have continued our efforts to broaden the scope of the Congress to all aspects of peer review and publication—from funding to postpublication—and to all sciences.
 
 We will have 3 days for presentations of new research into peer review and all aspects of scientific publication, bias, quality of reporting, and information access and dissemination. There are 50 plenary session research presentations and 5 plenary invited talks. Each plenary session research presentation will be followed by equal time for discussion and questions from the audience. In addition, there are 125 posters. All posters, including virtual posters, are available to view throughout the meeting. In-person posters will also be presented at designated times on September 9 and 10. If you are attending virtually, please visit the individual poster pages and ask your questions in the chat box. See the link to Posters on the left.
 
 We hope you will take an active part in the program, as we depend on your participation in the discussion sessions to make the Congress a success.

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Peer Review Congress 2022

Our aim is to encourage research into the quality and credibility of peer review and scientific publication, to establish the evidence base on which scientists can improve the conduct, reporting, and dissemination of scientific research.



**Chair:** Ana Marušić, University of Split

Lightning session 1

technical paper

Following the success of the 1st PEERE International Conference on Peer Review, the PEERE COST Action follow-up community organised the second edition of the PEERE International Conference on Peer Review  and was celebrated virtually on 29 September – 1 October 2020.

The conference welcomed any contribution (e.g., original research, position papers, literature reviews) that used any method (e.g., quantitative, experimental or qualitative) to investigate peer review in a variety of scientific domains (e.g., scholarly journals, funding agencies, research assessment). Interdisciplinary research is especially welcome.

The program is published here: http://tiny.cc/peere2020 


PEERE

The second edition of the PEERE International Conference on Peer Review aims to provide a forum for scholars, practitioners and science stakeholders to share research, models, tools and experience on peer review in different fields, e.g., medicine, computer science, social sciences and humanities. It aims to stimulate the use of evidence-based research in the design and implementation of peer review in a variety of fields and encourage more systematic research.

Michele Avissar-Whiting

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Downstream Retraction of Preprinted Research in the Life and Medical Sciences

In Review on Research Square: a journal-integrated preprint system for Springer Nature

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