The threat of paper mills to social science journals: The case of the Tanu.pro paper mill in Mind, Brain & Education

Fraudulent published papers used to be thought to be rare, but in recent years there has been growing awareness of coordinated activities by organizations that charge authors a fee to plant articles in reputable journals. These are known as paper mills. We reflect here on how Mind, Brain and Education suffered from such an attack in 2022 and 2023, discussing what we have learnt from this experience about how paper mills might operate in social sciences, how to spot signs that an article is fraudulent, and what steps might be taken to prevent such attacks in future.