For years, countless anonymous sleuths have worked unpaid and at risk to unveil the problems in academic papers, but have rarely been mentioned in the retraction notice. But nowadays, such condition is finally changing.

At present, many academic publishers are rolling out new policies to acknowledgment third-party sleuths in the retraction notice. Of them, Frontiers has been implementing this measure since last year. The spokesman of this publisher stated that once an investigation confirms problems existing in the paper and is conducted due to third-party query, the publisher offers the option to be recognized in the retraction notice to the third party, either be thanked by name, or as “the concerned reader.”

In March this year, Frontiers written in an retraction notice, “Frontiers would like to thank Alexander Magazinov for contacting the journal regarding the published article.”Meanwhile, a pseudonymous sleuth Claire Francis opted to be acknowledged simply as “a concerned reader” when receiving an email from Frontiers.

Beyond Frontiers, Springer Nature and Wiley are working on policies. Tim Kersjes, head of research integrity and resolutions, for Springer Nature told us, “There are a number of important areas that need careful consideration, including potential legal risk to those who are named in notice, permanence of records, etc., so as to implement uniform standards for its over 3000 subsidiary journals”. Wiley claimed that currently journals have different solutions, and are working toward a more standard approach, and they will only include the third-party name if they have provided permission, and if the journal’s editor also agrees.

This change owes much to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). COPE issued new guidance in August 2024, suggesting the acknowledgement to third parties who point out the problems; and if the problems are raised by an institutional investigation, , that fact should be noted as well. COPE Chair Nancy Chescheir told “If concerns about the article are raised by a third party, their name could be included in the retraction notice with permission.”

This policy has obtained support from several academic sleuths. David Bimler, a retired perception psychologist from Massey University, New Zealand argues that transparency could be further improved by linking retraction notices to public discussion threads and contributors’ pseudonyms. Alexander Magazinov, a software engineer in Kazakhstan highlighted the permission of the third party for being made public. Dorothy Bishop, an emeritus developmental neuropsychologist at the University of Oxford, believes the move may ease the historically tense relationship between sleuths and publishers.

These sleuths all agree that getting credit is secondary to the main goal, “decontamination of the scientific literature”. Holden Thorp, Editor-in-Chief of the Science family of journals, told that “if we can fall back on a COPE guideline, we’ll definitely start acknowledging sleuths in the retraction notice, which was previously difficult to implement due to opposition from institutions and authors.”

As these policies take hold, the efforts of academic sleuths will finally be visible, which not only is a recognition for them, but give fresh momentum to the broader fight for research integrity.