The head of a nuclear physics institute in Kazakhstan now has 21 retractions to his name \u2014 most of them logged in the past year \u2014 following dozens of his papers being flagged on PubPeer for data reuse and images showing suspiciously similar patterns of background noise, suggesting manipulation.<\/p>\n
Maxim Zdorovets, director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Astana, has written or coauthored 480 papers indexed on Scopus<\/a>, and one analysis<\/a> puts him as the third most cited researcher in Kazakhstan. His prolific publication record has been linked<\/a> to Russian paper mills, though those claims are unverified. Zdorovets has defended his work in a series of online posts, arguing the imaging similarities come from technical issues and that his own analyses prove image manipulation did not occur. He did not respond to Retraction Watch\u2019s request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n The latest retraction for Zdorovets came last month<\/a> when Crystallography Reports retracted a study containing electron microscope images \u201chighly similar\u201d to those published a year earlier in a now-retracted paper<\/a> in the Russian Journal of Electrochemistry by a similar group of authors. Both papers also included images that closely resemble ones Zdorovets and his colleagues presented at a nanomaterials conference<\/a> in Ukraine in 2017. In each instance, the images were meant to be showing different materials.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to many of the retraction notices, Zdorovets\u2019 papers have noise in the data that appears unusually similar across several figures. In 2023, a PubPeer commenter who pointed out suspicious patterns<\/a> in a 2017 Materials Research Express paper<\/a> triggered a lengthy exchange with IOP Publishing, the journal\u2019s publisher, which conducted three separate investigations into the paper. Initially, IOP said their subject-matter expert consultant found no sign of \u201cintentional alteration,\u201d and the company decided to take no action.\u00a0<\/p>\n Commenters pushed back, and in June 2024, the publisher sought opinions from three more experts, one whom they described as an \u201cabsolute expert in this area.\u201d The experts concluded the raw data submitted by the authors showed \u201cdistinct backgrounds.\u201d The publisher again decided not to act.\u00a0<\/p>\n In September 2024, Maarten Van Kampen, a data sleuth in the Netherlands, weighed in on the PubPeer thread, agreeing that the background noise looked identical and also pointing out similarities between data in the 2017 paper and another since-retracted paper<\/a> by a similar group of authors, including Zdorovets, in 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n Finally, this June, IOP Publishing acknowledged<\/a> that their experts had \u201cfailed to compare the raw data provided by the authors<\/a> with the published data,\u201d despite earlier claims to the contrary. The journal retracted the article<\/a> for containing identical background noise in the X-ray diffractions, which they said \u201ccan be indicative of image manipulation.\u201d They also noted the raw data the authors provided didn\u2019t match the paper\u2019s data, meaning they could find \u201cno evidence of the experiments being undertaken.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Asked about the investigations, Kim Eggleton, IOP Publishing\u2019s head of peer review and research integrity, said the first set of experts had been given raw data in a different file format than the later group of experts. The newer group also included a specialist in X-ray diffraction and two of the PubPeer commenters who first raised concerns. They had requested the specific format \u201cso they could assess the concerns in greater depth,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In August this year, the paper\u2019s second author, Marat Kaikanov, posted<\/a> in the PubPeer thread that he hoped his colleagues responsible for the X-ray measurements would \u201cbe able to confirm the accuracy\u201d of the results. Kaikanov told us he couldn\u2019t evaluate the flagged data firsthand because those experiments were outside his area of responsibility, but said his own contribution \u201cwas completed diligently and in full.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n While he didn\u2019t weigh in on that PubPeer exchange, Zdorovets has engaged with some other criticisms on the platform, where 85 papers he coauthored are flagged<\/a>. In one detailed response, he dismissed an allegation<\/a> the background noise in X-ray diffraction images were duplicated.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe were puzzled by such an unexpected question,\u201d he wrote, \u201csince there is no and cannot be any reasonable sense to somehow artificially change the background on the spectra mentioned in the question.\u201d In his comments on PubPeer, he says he analyzed both spectra and \u201ccan firmly say that they are not duplicated in any part,\u201d though he acknowledged a \u201chigh degree of similarity\u201d in the backgrounds. His explanation is that the samples were so thin that the instrument recorded signals from the table beneath them, resulting in the resemblances \u2014 a claim which Van Kampen, the Dutch data sleuth, calls \u201cunhinged.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs sleuths we get gray hair from these arguments,\u201d Van Kampen told Retraction Watch, adding that persistent denial helps delay or even prevent retractions. He referred to a COSIG guide<\/a> that states<\/a>, \u201cNo matter what, no two XRD patterns will feature the same noise pattern, even if they are collected from the same sample on the same instrument with the same settings.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The 2018 paper, published in Journal of Nanoparticle Research, was retracted<\/a> in December 2024 because of seemingly identical background noise in two figures. When the journal asked the authors for the original data, they found what was provided \u201cdiffers substantially\u201d from what had been published, according to the notice.\u00a0<\/p>\n In PubPeer comments made<\/a> after the retraction, Zdorovets expressed frustration over a lack of \u201cscientifically-grounded counter arguments\u201d and called the accusations \u201cunfounded.\u201d He said he had provided the original data to the journal and said there was \u201cno conflict\u201d between the submitted files and the figures in the article. \u201cWe strongly disagree with the decision to retract,\u201d he wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zdorovets has defended his work in reports he posted on his personal ResearchGate, including <\/a>what he says is a mathematical analysis of the data in three retracted papers showing no duplications. His coauthors have argued that similarities come from<\/a> reduced image quality and say critics misunderstood how X-ray diffraction data<\/a> were processed, claiming similarities arose from how the figures were viewed or plotted.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a statement to Retraction Watch<\/a>, a researcher who has collaborated with Zdorovets and wished to remain anonymous said \u201dneither I nor the authors of these papers, including Prof. Zdorovets, performed XRD measurements personally,\u201d and that the measurements came from a specialist at the institute whose data they had no reason to doubt. They suggested post-processing procedures such as smoothing, background correction and normalization might explain the observations. They said all the X-ray diffraction data now undergo internal verification.\u00a0<\/p>\n The collaborator said the group felt \u201cdeliberately targeted\u201d on PubPeer since \u201cso-called \u2018reviewers\u2019 on PubPeer presuppose our guilt in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n The research group remains open to constructive dialogue, the collaborator wrote, and maintains the observed problems are ones of method, not falsification, problems which \u201ccould and should have been resolved through correction rather than full retraction.\u201d<\/p>\n While background noise duplication is the most frequent issue raised around Zdorovets\u2019 work, seven of the retraction notices also refer to data being reused across several papers that allegedly report on different materials and experiments. One 2018 paper<\/a>, published in Ceramics International, is a complete duplication of another paper published<\/a> in Materials Research Express a few months earlier by a similar group of authors. The editor called the duplication a \u201cmisuse of the scientific publishing system.\u201d A 2019 paper<\/a> in Journal of Alloys and Compounds, duplicates data and tables published two months earlier<\/a> in Nanomaterials. That earlier paper, now also retracted, used images published another month earlier<\/a> in Vacuum.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2023, Zdorovets won a Scopus prize<\/a> supported by Elsevier and the government of Kazakhstan to recognize leading Kazakh researchers. He was also recently elected<\/a> to the National Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan.\u00a0<\/p>\n Retraction Watch Sleuth in Residence David Robert Grimes contributed analysis to this article.<\/p>\n Like Retraction Watch? You can make a\u00a0tax-deductible contribution to support our work<\/a>, follow us\u00a0on X<\/a> or Bluesky<\/a>, like us\u00a0on Facebook<\/a>, follow us on LinkedIn<\/a>, add us to your\u00a0RSS reader<\/a>, or subscribe to our\u00a0daily digest<\/a>. 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