Clarivate has paused Web of Science indexing of new content from six journals published by IJS Publishing Group (IJSPG) — including its flagship title, the International Journal of Surgery (IJS) — after a Retraction Watch investigation found that a mandatory citation policy had artificially inflated the journal’s impact factor. The case is a useful, concrete illustration of a citation-manipulation mechanism that is distinct from the paper-mill submission fraud and generic “quality concerns” behind most recent Web of Science delistings.
What happened
On March 12, 2026, Retraction Watch published an investigation into IJS, a Wolters Kluwer-owned open-access surgery journal that had reached a 2024 Journal Impact Factor (JIF) of 15.3 — second-highest among surgery journals. The investigation found that IJS required authors to cite specific reporting-guideline papers as a condition of publication. Those reporting-guideline papers were themselves authored or co-authored by IJS’s editor-in-chief and IJSPG founder, Riaz Agha. Because reporting guidelines are cited routinely across large numbers of submitted manuscripts, a mandatory-citation policy of this kind can mechanically drive up citation counts to the cited papers and, in turn, to the journal, without reflecting the underlying quality or influence of the research it publishes.
The investigation also flagged a related requirement: IJS’s policy of mandating prospective registration of human studies before manuscript submission funnelled some authors toward a paid research registry that Agha had separately founded in 2015 — a business interest connected to an editorial policy at the journal he edited.
On March 19, 2026, Clarivate placed six IJSPG titles — the International Journal of Surgery, Annals of Medicine and Surgery, International Journal of Surgery: Oncology, International Journal of Surgery Protocols, International Journal of Surgery Case Reports, and International Journal of Surgery Open — on hold, citing concerns about the quality of content published in the journals, as Retraction Watch subsequently reported. A “hold” pauses indexing of new content while Clarivate reviews the journal; per Retraction Watch’s reporting on Clarivate’s own historical disclosures, roughly 85% of journals placed on hold are ultimately delisted from Web of Science entirely.
On April 7, 2026, Wolters Kluwer confirmed it had removed the mandatory reporting-guideline citation requirement and the study-registration requirement at IJS following the investigation. Bibliometrics researchers quoted by Retraction Watch cautioned that removing the policy would not quickly reverse its effect on the journal’s already-inflated citation record.
How the citation-manipulation mechanism worked
This case is worth distinguishing from more familiar Web of Science delisting triggers. CASRAI’s guide to why journals get delisted from Web of Science covers cases such as Science of the Total Environment, the Hindawi special-issue collapse, and Cureus, which mostly involve paper-mill submission farming, bulk special issues, or broad editorial-quality failures. The IJS case is different in mechanism: it is a policy-level, self-referential citation requirement built directly into a journal’s author instructions, rather than a wave of fraudulent submissions slipping past peer review.
Legitimate reporting guidelines — such as PRISMA for systematic reviews, CONSORT for randomized trials, or STROBE for observational studies — genuinely improve methodological transparency, and many journals reasonably encourage or require authors to follow and cite them. See CASRAI’s guide to PRISMA and systematic review methodology for how that specific reporting standard is meant to function. What made the IJS policy different, according to the Retraction Watch investigation, was that the required citations routed disproportionately back to guideline papers authored by the journal’s own editor-in-chief, turning a legitimate transparency mechanism into a vehicle for inflating one person’s and one journal’s citation counts. A Journal Impact Factor is a ratio of citations to citable items over a defined window; a policy that predictably increases the numerator across nearly every published article, independent of the article’s actual scholarly influence, distorts that ratio in a way citation databases are specifically designed to catch and penalize.
What “on hold” means, and what happens next
Clarivate’s hold status is a review state, not a final delisting decision. Journals on hold stop receiving new-content indexing while Clarivate investigates; existing indexed content and citation history typically remain in the database during the review. As CASRAI’s delisting guide details, the two most common outcomes are reinstatement (if the publisher demonstrates the underlying issue has been resolved) or full delisting, after which the journal no longer receives a JIF and its back catalog may eventually be flagged or removed. Given Retraction Watch’s reporting that around 85% of held journals end up delisted, and given that IJS’s citation inflation stems from years of a mandatory policy rather than a single episode, researchers, authors with in-progress submissions, and institutions relying on IJS’s current JIF for evaluation purposes should treat that number as unreliable for the foreseeable future, regardless of the review’s eventual outcome.
Why this matters for research integrity and journal policy
The case adds to a growing body of citation-integrity concerns that bibliometric and research-integrity bodies have been tracking, distinct from outright paper-mill fraud: coercive citation, citation cartels, and self-referential editorial policies that use legitimate scholarly infrastructure (reporting guidelines, in this instance) as a citation-inflation lever. It illustrates why research administrators, authors, and evaluators should look past a journal’s headline impact factor to how that number was generated — including whether a journal’s own submission requirements are structurally capable of inflating it. For a comparable precedent involving a different inflation mechanism, see CASRAI’s coverage of what happened to Hindawi’s journal impact factor. Institutions and funders that use JIF or JIF-adjacent metrics in assessment should also weigh CASRAI’s broader guidance on research misconduct case studies for how citation manipulation fits alongside data fabrication, image manipulation, and authorship abuse as a recognized category of research integrity failure.
Frequently asked questions
Is the International Journal of Surgery still indexed in Web of Science?
As of this writing, IJS and five sibling IJSPG titles are on hold, meaning Clarivate has paused indexing new content while it reviews the journals. A hold is not the same as delisting; Clarivate has not yet announced a final decision for these titles.
What exactly did Retraction Watch find IJS did wrong?
Retraction Watch’s March 2026 investigation found that IJS required authors to cite specific reporting-guideline papers, several authored by the journal’s own editor-in-chief, Riaz Agha, as a condition of publication — a policy the investigation concluded had artificially inflated the journal’s impact factor. The investigation also flagged that a related study-registration requirement directed authors toward a paid registry Agha had founded separately.
Did Wolters Kluwer respond to the investigation?
Yes. Wolters Kluwer, which acquired IJSPG in 2022, confirmed on April 7, 2026 that it had removed the mandatory reporting-guideline citation requirement and the study-registration requirement at IJS following the investigation.
Is requiring authors to cite reporting guidelines always a problem?
No. Requiring or encouraging authors to follow and cite established reporting guidelines such as PRISMA, CONSORT, or STROBE is common editorial practice and generally supports methodological transparency. The concern in this case was the specific, self-referential pattern the investigation identified — a policy that routed citations disproportionately toward the editor-in-chief’s own papers — not the general practice of citing reporting guidelines.
How does this differ from the Hindawi or Cureus delistings?
Those cases centered on paper-mill submission fraud and special-issue quality failures reaching Web of Science at volume. The IJS case centers on a citation-policy mechanism built into standard editorial requirements, applied to essentially all submitted manuscripts rather than a subset flagged as fraudulent. See CASRAI’s guide to why journals get delisted from Web of Science for a fuller comparison of delisting triggers.
Sources: Retraction Watch, “International Journal of Surgery investigation” (March 12, 2026); Retraction Watch, “Publisher changes citation, registration policies following Retraction Watch investigation” (April 7, 2026); Retraction Watch, “Major citation index put surgery journals on hold following Retraction Watch investigation” (June 24, 2026).
