Clear Skies uses advanced data analytics to support research integrity.

Launched in early 2022, Clear Skies brought novel tools to market for assessing and modelling the peer-review process including the Clear Skies Article Tracker. Clear Skies created the Papermill Alarm: the first service dedicated to detecting organised research fraud (also known as “papermills”). The Papermill Alarm won the 2024 ALPSP award for innovation in publishing.

Read about Clear Skies and the Papermill Alarm in Nature, Science, and The Wall Street Journal. For the latest news, follow our blog and find us on BlueSky.

The Papermill Alarm is comprised of a number of separate tools using a broad range of innovative methods and unique data. We use AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), network analysis and more to find signals consistent with organised research fraud.

A significant and growing problem

We estimate that at least 1.5% of the research literature is produced by papermills.

The Papermill Alarm is available exclusively via a direct subscription to Clear Skies’ services.

Contact us for details.

Subscribe to Clear Skies to receive:

• Automated alerts when The Papermill Alarm detects signs of research fraud in newly published papers. Subscribing publishers also receive alerts when new submissions trigger The Papermill Alarm: saving time in peer-review and preventing retractions.
• Access to a web app which shows long term trends. This can reveal methods of operation: targeted journals, targeted subject areas and much more.

For more details: contact us , follow our blog and find us on X.com.

Acknowledgements

Clear Skies gratefully acknowledges the services and support of the following organisations and individuals.

• Aries Systems, Helen King, Adrian Stanley LLC, Akabana Consulting LLC, The STM Association, Morressier, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Crossref, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, ORCID, Retraction Watch, Elisabeth Bik, Guillaume Cabanac, Smut Clyde, Anna Abalkina, Sholto David, Kevin Patrick (Cheshire).