Guest editors use special issues to ‘publish in support of self’

“Appalling” numbers of journal editors publishing in their own special issues have been highlighted by research integrity experts, who urged publishers and funders to tackle this “abuse of editorial power”.

Although academics are permitted to publish in collections of papers they guest edit, a high rate of “endogeny” (the practice of publishing articles in one’s own special issue) has been criticised over fears it could lead to conflicts of interest, cronyism and lack of diversity within special issues.

In what has been billed as the “first systematic analysis of a particular type of abuse of power”, researchers from the UK and France analysed more than 100,000 special issues published by five leading publishers between 2015 and 2025. That work identified more than 1,000 special issues published every year with an endogeny level of at least 33 per cent – a threshold at which the issue could be considered “publishing in support of self” (PISS), its authors suggest.

More than 100 special issues a year comprised papers of which 75 per cent or more came from guest editors – a rate of endogeny described as “appalling” in the arxiv preprint.

While acknowledging that it is “quite common” for editors to publish in their own special issues, the paper’s authors, Mark Hanson from the University of Exeter, Paolo Gomez Barreiro from London’s Royal Botanic Gardens and Paolo Crosetto from the University of Grenoble Alpes, argue that this practice “scales badly”.

“Very high levels of endogeny are an exercise in academic narcissism and, as such, may be considered academic misconduct,” they contend, noting that many publishers and sector bodies advise that guest editors should contribute no more than 25 per cent of papers in their own publications.

Swiss publisher MDPI was easily the biggest publisher of “PISS” special issues, accounting for 87 per cent of collected editions (9,204 special editions) with a one-in-three endogeny rate.

In addition, 1,781 of these special issues had a “severe” endogeny rate of more than 50 per cent and 1,230 had an “extreme” rate above 75 per cent, the paper says.

MDPI confirmed that guest editors were permitted to publish in their own special issues but “such contributions must be limited” and not exceed 25 per cent of the total peer-reviewed content.

“MDPI journals actively monitor this threshold and clearly communicate the policy to guest editors before a special issue is launched to ensure transparency and compliance,” it said, noting that publications “with a very small final number of articles…may statistically exceed standard endogeny thresholds if a guest editor authors a paper”.

“This can occur despite all submissions being subject to the same independent peer-review and editorial oversight as regular journal articles,” it said, adding that “articles submitted by a guest editor are handled by an independent member of the editorial board” and “are subject to the same external peer-review and editorial decision-making processes as all other submissions”.

The authors of the paper argue that “unlike other challenges plaguing academic publishing, the solution to PISS is simple”: recommending publishers begin “setting simple endogeny rules and enforcing them”.

Urging researchers and universities to be “more alert” to special issues where guest editors contribute a high proportion of articles, co-author Hanson told Times Higher Education that “[Swiss funder] SNSF stopped funding article processing charges spent to publish special issue articles in 2023. I think this could be adopted more broadly, although it does catch the honest editors in the crossfires.”

That said, special issues could be supported if “done properly”, he continued. “The most valuable thing about special issues, when they’re truly special, is that they can offer a more relaxed format for opinion articles, conversational pieces, and opportunities to invite review articles from major players in the field who write reviews with a thesis that is based on leading work in the field that doesn’t fit the current paradigm.”

“Special issues can be a way to promote those challenging or controversial conversations, for better or worse,” he continued, arguing it was “a tragedy that guest-edited collections have been hijacked for profit by certain publishing groups”.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com