Ranking-based sanctions for retraction-afflicted elite researchers

Background: The 2024 Stanford career-long list of the world’s top 2% scientists (WTSs) by citation impact, which for the first time includes retraction data, offers a unique opportunity to explore research integrity within this group of elite researchers. Methods: This study examines the retraction data across multiple dimensions, including countries/regions, institutions, research domains, fields, and subfields, using three key metrics: the prevalence of WTSs with retractions, the retraction rate, and the citation rate of retracted publications. Results: Our analysis reveals significant variations in these retraction metrics by country/region income level, level of seniority in academic publishing, and research domain. Significant differences were also observed between China and the USA. Based on these findings, we argue that elite researchers should be held accountable and sanctioned for their retractions. Accordingly, we propose a ranking-based sanction framework for identifying and ranking WTSs with retractions, and this framework is applied to the 2024 Stanford career-long list to illustrate its practical applicability. Conclusion: We discuss the findings and their implications for addressing retractions among elite researchers, as well as strategies for refining the ranking-based sanction framework.