Choosing the right publication journal means avoiding dubious publishers!

The development of Open Access has changed communication and scientific publication practices. INRAE, France's National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment, has a commitment to promote the principles of scientific integrity (reliability, honesty, respect, responsibility), and recently highlighted concerns to its employees of the practices of predatory and "grey" or "doubtful" publishers.

INRAE highlight the massive canvassing of researchers who are urgently invited to publish in these journals, or to carry out analyzes of manuscripts within a very short deadline. This results in a large number of publications in these journals, increasing their impact factor. INRAE also highlight practices such as the publication of an article that is not/poorly validated by peers, ultimately damage the reputation and credibility of the researcher and their institution.

The Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) are particularly highlighted by INRAE as undertaking dubious practices such as improper solicitation of researchers identified using artificial intelligence tools, the promotion of special issues each year to attract authors, creation of journals with titles similar to other renowned journals (e.g. Animal and Animals, Cell and Cells), short publication times, and poor quality of communication to authors.

Practical methods to identify and avoid predatory, grey and dubious journals are provided by INRAE.

The link to a translation of the full article by INRAE can be found at: https://dx.doi.org/10.17180/cdky-p004