## Wolters Kluwer Scraps Controversial Citation & Registration Rules at Top Surgery Journal After Retraction Watch Probe
A major academic publisher has been forced to retract controversial policies at a leading surgery journal following an investigation that revealed they were used to inflate the journal's metrics and steer business to its editor's private company. Wolters Kluwer has removed mandatory citation requirements and a blanket study registration rule from the *International Journal of Surgery (IJS)*, a journal founded by UK plastic surgeon Riaz Agha. The changes come directly after a Retraction Watch probe exposed how these requirements artificially boosted the journal's impact factor and funneled authors toward a paid registry owned by Agha.

The investigation found that authors were required to cite specific reporting guidelines developed by Agha and published in *IJS*. This practice, which had no clear scientific justification, systematically increased the journal's citation count and its prestigious impact factor, making it more attractive in the competitive academic publishing market. Furthermore, the journal enforced a policy demanding all human studies be registered before submission—a rule that ran counter to established editorial guidelines—and directed researchers to a for-profit registry, the Research Registry, which Agha founded in 2015.

A Wolters Kluwer spokesperson confirmed the policy updates to *IJS*'s author instructions and stated a broader review of policies across the *IJS* family of publications is ongoing. The swift reversal signals intense scrutiny on publisher practices that can be manipulated for financial or reputational gain, placing pressure on the integrity of academic metrics. The episode highlights how editorial control can be leveraged to create conflicts of interest, undermining trust in scientific publishing and prompting a wider examination of journal governance.
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- **Source**: Retraction Watch
- **Sector**: The Lab
- **Tags**: Academic Publishing, Research Integrity, Conflict of Interest, Impact Factor, Retraction Watch
- **Credibility**: unverified
- **Published**: 2026-04-07 23:56:51
- **ID**: 53962
- **URL**: https://whisperx.ai/en/intel/53962