Predatory Publishing

Serious scientific publications make your research visible and support your career. However, not all opportunities to publish or present your work are trustworthy. Some journals and conferences use questionable practices or try to take advantage of researchers — for example, by charging high fees or failing to conduct quality checks. These unreliable offers are often difficult to spot. We provide information and support to help you identify predatory journals and conferences.

Predatory journals often operate in a way that offers authors a paid publication without genuine quality assurance or editorial review – standards that are taken for granted in legitimate scholarly journals. In addition, publications in predatory journals are often not indexed in relevant subject databases, making them neither accessible nor visible to the scientific community.

Checklists & Tools

The following lists can help you assess whether a journal is trustworthy:

• Checklist from the evaluation initiative Think.Check.Submit.
• List of quality‑assured open‑access journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• Negative list compiled in Beall’s List

Predatory conferences often appear legitimate at first glance, but a closer look reveals that they provide no real scientific value. They are frequently organized solely for commercial purposes — with high registration fees, little scholarly content, and, ultimately, moderators and participants exploited.

Checklist

The following resource can help you assess whether a conference is trustworthy: Checklist from the evaluation initiative Think.Check.Attend.