Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A journal issues an EoC while an institutional research-integrity office investigates reported image duplication in the paper.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A minor, acknowledged error that doesn't affect the paper's conclusions gets a correction, not an EoC.
Editorial commentary
An expression of concern (EoC) is a formal editorial notice, published by a journal and attached to a specific article, alerting readers to credible, unresolved doubts about the article’s reliability. Per COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidance, an editor typically issues an EoC rather than proceeding straight to retraction when: an investigation into the concern (institutional, funder, or journal-led) is still ongoing and its outcome will take time; the editor has been unable to obtain the information needed from authors or their institution to reach a conclusion; or there is a clear breach of publication or research-integrity policy that cannot be resolved through a simple correction, but the underlying data or findings have not (yet) been shown to be unreliable enough to warrant retraction.
Expression of concern vs. retraction
The two notices sit at different points on the same spectrum. A correction addresses a discrete, non-fundamental error. A retraction is COPE’s mechanism for removing an article’s standing when the findings or conclusions can no longer be relied upon — for confirmed data fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or unresolvable authorship/ethical breaches. An EoC sits between the two: it does not withdraw the paper’s conclusions, it flags that readers should treat them with caution pending resolution. COPE’s own guidance frames it explicitly as an interim measure, not a permanent endpoint — the expectation is that an EoC is eventually replaced by either a correction (if concerns are resolved without invalidating the work) or a retraction (if they are not).
What it means for the paper
An article under an EoC remains part of the published literature and remains citable, but the EoC itself should always be cited alongside it — indexers (Crossref, PubMed) link the EoC and the original article bidirectionally, and a reader or citing author should treat the flagged concerns as material to how the findings are used. In practice, COPE and outside observers (including Retraction Watch’s ongoing reporting) have noted that many EoCs remain unresolved for years, because the institutional investigations they are waiting on stall or are never transparently reported back to the journal. COPE’s more recent guidance has pushed toward tighter language discouraging journals from leaving an EoC open indefinitely simply because an institutional process has stalled — see CASRAI’s COPE overview for how this fits into COPE’s broader Retraction Guidelines.
Example: A journal publishes an EoC on a paper after an institutional research-integrity office opens a formal inquiry into image duplication reported by third-party sleuths, while that inquiry is ongoing.
Counter-example: A paper with a minor, acknowledged unit-conversion error that does not affect its conclusions receives a correction, not an EoC — the underlying reliability of the work was never in credible doubt.
References
- COPE Retraction Guidelines, v2 (November 2019), DOI 10.24318/cope.2019.1.4
- COPE, Expressions of concern guidance
- ICMJE Recommendations on corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern
Also known as
EoC · editorial expression of concern
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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