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Dr Jorge Mataix-Solera Department of Agrochemistry and Environment Universidad Miguel Hernández Avda de la Universidad s/n. Edificio Alcudia 03202. Elche, Alicante Spain Tel 966658334, Fax: 966658340 [email protected] www.jorgemataix.com Dear colleagues On 18 February 2017, an anonymous report by the pseudonym "Akhenaten McDonald" about scientific misconduct was distributed widely amongst the scientific community. This report was trigged by the unusually high impact factor of Land Degradation and Development and aimed to provide evidence for scientific misconduct (artificial inflation of citations and journal impact factor). It highlights the activity of an alleged "citation cartel" involving five editors and five journals, and lists a further three editors and authors as having potentially “dubious” involvement. Whilst not accused as being part of the citation cartel, my name appears under potentially “dubious” involvement and I therefore feel the need to respond to this serious and potentially damaging accusation. My name appears in the report because (i) I co-authored some papers with other researchers that also appear in the mentioned report as having inflated citations and (ii) I am Executive Editor of SOIL, which is one of the journals listed as potentially involved in the citation cartel. The report states that in my case, my participation in that malpractice was dubious (i.e. doubtful), and no meaningful evidence is given of my potential involvement. However, the anonymous author(s) did include my name and that of other colleagues in the report with seemingly little regard to what damage that may be causing to our prestige and reputation. Some damage has unfortunately been done already. I had to spend nearly all my time during the last couple of weeks explaining to other colleagues, to the Spanish Society of Soil Science members, etc. that I am not a member of any cartel to promote citations between journals, I have NEVER used that malpractice, NEVER. To prove this I went through the reviews of all papers I have handled as Editor and reviewer in the last 10 years in the mentioned set of journals, and I have also asked editorials for official reports about my work as Editor and reviewer. I append the results of (i) my own evaluation of my work in last 10 years; (ii) an independent investigation of Copernicus and EGU (publisher of SOIL and Solid Earth); (iii) an investigation by Geoderma (Elsevier). All these proof that I have not been involved in any malpractice. In fact in my reviews in Geoderma, Catena, SOIL, and Solid Earth there are: 0 recommendations to ANY paper in Land Degradation and Development, 0 recommendations to ANY paper of SOIL, and 0 recommendations to ANY paper in Solid Earth, which are the journals indicated in the report as being involved in the malpractice. Indeed as one of the Executive Editors of SOIL, I was involved in discovering the malpractice by one of our topical editors well before the anonymous “cartel” report had been distributed. This editor promptly stepped down from SOIL and this malpractice and its implications communicated on 13. Feb (see Appendix for details). From the investigations to date it is clear that there has been some scientific misconduct, with one individual clearly implicated at its root. Whilst the anonymous “citation cartel” report provides useful evidence for citation malpractice, it has also led to serious damage to the reputation of colleagues including myself, which I feel is also a form of unfortunate scientific misconduct. I hope my letter and the evidence given in the appendix goes some way in repairing the damage. I also urge the authors of the report to contribute to repairing some of the damage they have done. During the last days I have received numerous messages from colleagues and friends to give to me their support, but I remain saddened and very disappointed after read many messages in forums, see how these rumours are being shared and how members of our “scientific community” give consideration the credibility of this anonymous report. Thanks to all of you that do not believe in rumours and hold their judgement until we know all the facts. Sincerely Jorge APPENDIX: 1) My own analysis of my activities as reviewer and Editor I am Executive Editor of SOIL, member of Editorial Board of Geoderma (where my role is reviewer of a higher number of papers, not Editor), in the past I was Guest Editor of 2 Special Issues (2008 and 2013) in CATENA, and I am occasional reviewer for other journals. Geoderma I reviewed 24 papers in the 2005-2015 period (10 years). In 19 of them I NEVER suggested any citation, and in the other 5 papers these were my recommendation of citations (always because a lack of referencing in methodology or because the author missed relevant literature, mostly revision papers): 1 paper (1 recommendation of a paper of International Journal of Wildland Fire, a review paper), 1 paper (1 recommendation of a paper of International Journal of Wildland Fire, a review paper), 1 paper (1 recommendation of a paper of Earth- Science Reviews, a review paper, and another in Spanish J. of Soil Science), 1 paper (1 recommendation of a paper of Australian Journal of Soil Research), and 1 paper (1 recommendation of a paper of Earth- Science Reviews, a review paper). CATENA As reviewer, I reviewed 7 papers during the 2005-2015period. In 6 of them I NEVER suggested any citation, in the other 1 I suggested 2 citations, one from Geoderma, and the other was because the lack of soil classification in description of study site, so I suggested in this case to include the ‘Keys to Soil Taxonomy reference’. I was, with others, Guest Editor of 2 Special Issues: ‘Fire Effects on Soil Properties’ (2008) and ‘Soil Water Repellency’ (2013). As Guest Editor, I handled 12 papers in those SIs, in 9 of them I NEVER suggested any citation, and in the other 3, in 1 I recommended a reference of Soil Soc. of Am J., in other a methodological paper reference from Geoderma, and in the last one another reference for soil type, in this case the reference of WRB for Soil Resources. Land Degradation of Development Since 2013 I have reviewed 8 papers in LDD: I have NEVER suggested any citation, 0. Solid Earth I have reviewed 1 paper, and I recommended 1 citation of Geoderma. SOIL 52 papers handled as Executive Editor and I have NEVER suggested ANY citation to authors, 0. In summary, in my reviews in Geoderma, Catena, SOIL, and Solid Earth there are: 0 recommendations to ANY paper in Land Degradation and Development, 0 recommendations to ANY paper of SOIL, and 0 recommendations to ANY paper in Solid Earth, which are the journals indicated in the report for the malpractice done by only 1 member of Editorial Boards. So, in conclusion, as Editor I NEVER suggested ANY citation to those journals indicated in the report for the malpractice, and as Reviewer or Guest Editor, my numbers of suggestions to cite additional papers (a total of 13 recommendations from 100 papers handled in the last 10 years) is probably far below that of most other reviewers. The “cartel” report also includes a graph on the last page of my increase of citations from Land Degradation and Development. My total citations in 2016 were 1002 (see https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=p4bKbx0AAAAJ&hl=es), which is not unusual when compared with previous years. The cites I received coming from Land Degradation and Development were 17% of my total citations that year. The main reasons for from the number the citations from Land Degradation and Development in 2016 are: a) There was a Special Issue in LDD about Fire effects on soils, with more than 20 papers. This is my main research topic, so a higher number of citations of my previous work would be expected to arise from this. b) I am co-author of one paper in LDD that have received high citations, which may indeed be the result of “citation stacking”. However, as clearly evidenced above, I have never suggested, neither as reviewer nor as editor, any citations to papers in LDD. (Note that, according to Scopus, I have 115 co-authors in my publication record. So, there are a high number of people whose activities could potentially affect me. ) 2) Action by the journal SOIL on this matter As I mentioned, I am one of the Executive Editors of SOIL. SOIL was the journal that discovered the malpractice made by one of our topical editors, and SOIL was the journal that opened this to the Public. You can check this editorial below as annex (signed also by me as Executive Editor, and published on 13 Feb 2017). Editorial sent on 13/02/2017 Dear colleagues, (this email is sent to all SOIL editors, referees, and authors) It has been nearly three years that we, the Executive Editors of SOIL, have been working with all of you to make SOIL the best possible soil journal. We have really enjoyed receiving and handling interesting interdisciplinary soil articles, which has led to us publishing a series of excellent issues of SOIL. This is due to your commitment to submit high quality papers to SOIL. As you know SOIL and Copernicus are committed to maintaining high scientific and publishing standards (see aims and scope of SOIL: http://www.soil-journal.net/about/aims_and_scope.html) and it is therefore, with some sadness, that we have to inform you about scientific malpractice by a member of SOIL's editorial board. It has come to our attention that a proportion of the citations to SOIL articles are the result of a Topical Editor of SOIL suggesting, in some cases without real foundation, numerous references of SOIL articles to be included in manuscripts that this editor was handling as reviewer and/or editor for other soil- related journals – a practice referred to as "citation stacking*" – allowing to increase citations back to SOIL.

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