On October 1 and 2, Bioengineered published retraction notices for 119 papers, according to Retraction Watch, bringing the Taylor & Francis journal to 255 retractions since its editors opened an investigation in 2021. The publisher’s own note dated July 2, 2025 put a different number on the record: more than 1,000 of the journal’s articles carried an “under investigation” notice. Nothing Taylor & Francis has published says how many of the 255 came off that list, how many listed papers have been cleared, or how many are still open.
Retraction Watch asked about the October batch. A Taylor & Francis spokesperson and editor-in-chief Jelena Vider both pointed back to the July 2025 note.
A sign authorship was being sold
The publisher’s account of the compromise is brief. According to the July note, editorial integrity at the journal was compromised between 2021 and 2022, when a large spike in submissions arrived along with requests to change authorship after papers had been submitted, and the publisher read both as signs that a paper mill had targeted the journal. Taylor & Francis also pointed to articles that drew repeated requests during peer review to add new authors, which it treated as a sign authorship may have been sold. The note lists the response: a content integrity screening team, a refreshed editorial leadership and board, an in-house executive editor, and retractions beginning in early 2022. It also suspended new submissions so staff could work through the historical articles, and said the pause would give the publisher time to consider the journal’s future.
Clarivate removed Bioengineered from Web of Science in its April 21, 2025 update, a year after warning that removal was possible. Clarivate said the journal no longer met “one or more of our 24 quality criteria” and declined to say which. Taylor & Francis said it was “disappointed” and that it had retracted 86 papers since January 2022. A delisted journal waits two years to reapply, a period Clarivate said it may shorten for publishers that investigate integrity breaches themselves and correct the record. René Aquarius, the researcher whose team had been documenting the journal’s images, asked the obvious question: “What did they miss?”
Retractions stood at 86 in May 2025 and 255 by October 2026. That works out to 169 in about 18 months, 119 of them in a single October batch, against 86 in the roughly 40 months before. The faster pace came after a public image analysis, the delisting and the suspension of submissions. The record does not show which of those moved it, or whether the cleanup was already speeding up before any of them.
226 papers, no notices
The most detailed public accounting of what sits in the journal came from outside the publisher. Aquarius, of Radboud University Medical Center, worked with Elisabeth Bik, David Bimler, Morten Oksvold and Kevin Patrick. They pulled the Bioengineered articles from 2010 through 2023 that mentioned mice or rats in the title or abstract and screened the figures with the image-matching tool ImageTwin. Every algorithmic match had to be confirmed by eye, and flagged papers not already reported went up on PubPeer for anyone to check. Bioengineered printed their findings on August 21, 2025.
Of 878 articles assessed, they classed 226 as problematic, or 25.7 percent. Image duplication or manipulation accounted for 194 of them, 35 had already been retracted, and the two groups overlap. The rate hardly moved across the journal’s peak years: 101 of 391 included articles in 2021, 105 of 394 in 2022. In 122 articles, the duplication ran between different papers. The authors wrote that photographs recurring in papers from different author groups and institutions point to a common source, a pattern they associate with paper mills.
| Measure | Share |
|---|---|
| of 878 rodent-study articles | 25.7 percent |
The team checked editorial status on March 23 and 24, 2025, and found that none of the 226 carried an expression of concern or an “under investigation” notice. One had been retracted in January 2024 and reinstated two months later. Their paper says Taylor & Francis’ “lack of visible editorial action has left the scientific community vulnerable,” and urged the publisher to use the findings “as a starting point.” The publisher’s labels arrived after that check, with hundreds of papers marked by May 2025 and more than 1,000 by July. Which of the 226 are among them is not public.
Of the 226 flagged papers, 223 had been cited at least once, some as many as 117 times. They are rodent studies, the preclinical work that later research builds on. A citation does not prove the citing paper used a suspect figure, but each one sends a reader toward a paper the reviewers flagged.
The reviewers disclose their own ties in the same document: all five collaborate with ImageTwin and used it without charge, Bik and Bimler accept Patreon donations for their image sleuthing, and Bik takes speaker fees and occasional consulting income. Their method and their flags are public. The publisher’s evidence comes out one notice at a time, and according to Retraction Watch, most of the October notices say only that “significant concerns have been raised” about the integrity of the data and reported results. A few name image duplication, authorship changes or peer review irregularities. Aquarius said his team had flagged some of the October papers, “but not all.” How far the publisher’s list and the volunteers’ list overlap is not on the record.
$2,990 a paper
The documents do not show what Taylor & Francis collected on the 255 retracted papers, whether any of it went back to authors, or whether the business model slowed detection. They show a fully open-access journal paid by its authors, with an article publishing charge that LetPub lists at $2,990, although waivers mean not every author paid that price. The journal earns when it publishes. A paper mill sells published papers and places on their author lists. The warning signs Taylor & Francis itself named, a flood of submissions and late requests to add authors, are what that trade leaves behind in a submission log.
Who holds the list
Taylor & Francis put the notices on more than 1,000 articles and runs the investigation behind them, and Jelena Vider edits the journal. Asked about October, both answered with July 2025. Neither has said publicly how many flagged papers have been cleared, how many remain under review, or whether the journal will reopen to submissions, the decision the July note said the pause was meant to make time for. Until that accounting exists, every unretracted paper carrying a notice remains citable, and researchers who cite one have no way to know whether it is headed for retraction or clearance.
Sources
- Retraction Watch: Bioengineered retracts 119 more papers as investigation continues
- Taylor & Francis: Publisher note, suspending submissions to Bioengineered
- Aquarius et al.: Tackling paper mills requires us to prevent future contamination and clean up the past
- Retraction Watch: Web of Science delists bioengineering journal in wake of paper mill cleanup
- Revista Pesquisa FAPESP: Journal stops publishing papers amid investigation into suspected misconduct
- LetPub: Bioengineered journal listing