Pay-to-publish models without peer review, fake editorial boards listing respected scientists, fraudulent impact factors, journal names deceptively similar to those of legitimate journals, and spam invitations to sham conferences with high registration fees: these are some of the practices of predatory journals, publishers and conferences.

The  InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) is organising a set of webinars to help researchers identify and understand these practices, which can cause long-term, widespread damage to research and researchers.

Predatory Academic Practices: Regional Perspectives and Learning will have five events, with a geographical focus each (you can register on the IAP website):

Europe: 19 November 09:00-11:00 UTC
Africa: 24 November 12:00-14:00 UTC
Americas: 3 December 16:00-18:00 UTC
Asia: 7 December 06:00-08:00 UTC
Global: 14 December 12:00-14:00 UTC

Each webinar will bring together members of the IAP Working Group with other scientists in the region. The IAP Working Group is constituted by international experts nominated by academies around the world to lead an IAP study that is assessing the extent and impact of predatory practices, identifying their root causes, and reviewing efforts to combat them. The IAP study will report in early 2022 but you can find study resources and the names of the Working Group members on the IAP website.

The webinar is hosted by IAP in collaboration with the Global Young Academy (GYA), the Association of Academies and Societies of Sciences in Asia (AASSA), the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC), the Inter-American Network of Academies of Science (IANAS) and the Network of African Science Academies (NASAC).

If you attend the webinars, let us know in the comments of this post if you found them useful, to inform other Junior Section members. Thank you!