Hot Topics

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Hot Topics highlights timely issues and emerging discussions shaping the practice of medical publication and communication. As scientific, regulatory, and technological developments continue to evolve rapidly, this section focuses on topics gaining attention now and offers perspectives that help the ISMPP community stay informed, anticipate impact, and navigate change with confidence.

 

 

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Protecting Trust in Science

This collection explores challenges and strategies

Scientific trust is one of the most valuable assets in research—and one of the most vulnerable. As predatory journals, fraudulent conferences, paper mills, and AI-enabled misconduct grow more sophisticated, the scientific community faces mounting challenges to the integrity of the evidence base. At the same time, restoring public confidence requires more than detecting bad actors; it demands transparency, accountability, and a renewed commitment to ethical publishing practices. Explore insights, emerging threats, and practical solutions shaping the future of trustworthy science.

 

Explore the Collection

Protecting trust in science requires vigilance across the entire research and publication ecosystem. This collection brings together thought leadership from two important ISMPP initiatives addressing the integrity of scholarly publishing and scientific communication.

The Dark Side of Publishing series was developed by the Predatory Publishing Workstream of the ISMPP Publication Ethics and Standards Committee. These articles examine the growing threats posed by predatory journals, fraudulent conferences, paper mills, publication fraud, and the misuse of emerging technologies, offering practical guidance for recognizing and avoiding unethical publishing practices.

Complementing this perspective, Restoring Trust in Science and the related webinar emerged from a collaboration between ISMPP and the Council of Science Editors (CSE) through the ISMPP Professional Collaborations Committee. Together, they explore the broader challenge of rebuilding confidence in science through transparency, accountability, effective communication, and meaningful engagement with the public. To provide historical context, the collection also includes foundational articles from the ISMPP archives that demonstrate how concerns about predatory publishing have evolved over the past decade.

 

 

The Dark Side of Publishing series from the ISMPP Publication Ethics & Standards Committee

Restoring Trust in Science article & webinar

From the ISMPP Insider Archives

Shining the Spotlight: The Dark Side of Publishing Gets Even Darker

Predatory publishing has evolved beyond questionable journals into a complex ecosystem of paper mills, review manipulation, and AI-enabled fraud. This article explores emerging threats to research integrity and introduces the Quad P framework—Prevention, Probing, Protection, and Preservation—to help professionals identify risks and safeguard the publication lifecycle.

Seeing Beyond Speed: Debating AI’s Value in Medical Communications

At the 2026 European Meeting of ISMPP, a lively “balloon debate” explored a simple but important question: what is AI’s most valuable contribution to medical communications? Framed around the familiar challenge of delivering work faster, better, or cheaper, the debate featured four competing perspectives—quality and trust, speed and scalability, transformational potential, and informed skepticism—and challenged attendees to rethink the tradeoffs that have long shaped the profession.