Paper mills—covert organizations that provide low-quality or fabricated manuscripts to paying clients—pose a growing threat to the integrity of academic publishing. These operations undermine the credibility of scholarly communication and erode trust in research.
As part of the global response to this challenge, the United2Act (U2A) initiative has convened a broad coalition of stakeholders to address the threat of paper mills in scholarly publishing. A key strategy that has emerged from this effort is the development of trust markers—indicators designed to reinforce transparency and accountability throughout the research and publishing process.
United2Act, supported by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and STM (the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers), launched in May 2023 with an inaugural summit that brought together stakeholders from 15 countries. This gathering resulted in a Consensus Statement that identified five key areas of action, which now guide the initiative’s ongoing efforts. The development of trust markers is a central pillar of this strategy.
As the Chair of U2A Working Group 4: Develop Trust Markers, COS Product Owner Blaine Butler has led efforts to define and implement trust markers within the scholarly publishing ecosystem. All working group participants are members of the Trust Marker Project and work collaboratively to develop clear definitions of trust markers in the context of paper mills to support cross-sector communications and strategy development, including the coordination of external initiatives and other tools for identifying paper mills or signaling trust during the submission, editorial, and peer review process.
What Are Trust Markers?
Trust markers signal transparency, reproducibility, and integrity in research, helping build trust in both the research process and its outputs. They serve as signals of quality and validity, allowing users to assess the credibility of a publication and those involved in the publishing process.
"While the desire to identify 'Trust Markers' arose with the need for working against the rise of paper mills specifically, there are broader applications across the publishing landscape for 'Trust Markers' to help encourage, identify and promote research integrity within publishing,” Butler said. “This is true of many of the objectives of the United2Act initiative, including improving post-publication corrections.”
Key Recommendations and Resources
The working group led by Butler has developed recommendations for when and how various trust markers should be surfaced throughout the research and publication process. These resources offer practical guidance for publishers, editors, reviewers, and authors looking to implement trust markers as part of their efforts to combat paper mills and enhance research integrity.
These materials are now available in the Working Group 4: Trust Markers component. Outputs from other U2A working groups will be publicly available on the initiative’s Open Science Framework (OSF) project in June. These new resources represent a significant milestone in collective action against paper mills and will serve as valuable tools for the scholarly community.
Butler also presented these recommendations during a virtual U2A symposium on May 7, which showcased the collective progress made and set the stage for the next chapter in combating paper mills.
Join the Movement
By implementing trust markers and supporting initiatives like U2A, the broader research community can work together to safeguard the integrity of academic literature and ensure that trust remains the foundation of scholarly communication.
For more information about U2A, or to access the resources developed by the working groups, visit the OSF project page.
Support the Movement
As announced at the U2A Summit, Lisa Hinchliffe, University of Illinois, and Nandita Quaderi, Clarivate, will be taking on the co-Chair roles at the end of June 2025, leading U2A into its next chapter.
As U2A transitions to a new phase, they will be implementing a new governance and funding structure to support the initiative outside of these organizations. Please email contact@united2act.org to express your interest in U2A.
