Research integrity IS research security. Not a nice-to-have — it's foundational. My latest blog explores the cracks in science's ecosystem that go way deeper than #ResearchSecurity.

THREAD

Launch Day: The Altmetric Museum

At Altmetric HQ we have a large and growing collection of artefacts from the vast history of our company. Countries come and go. Empires have risen and fallen. Only Altmetric remains.

Today we open this museum to the public for the first time.
1/11

Print looking down on a speckled brown, yellow and white fledgling bird

Thrush etching by contemporary printmaker Faith Chevannes #WomensArt #Spring

1. Over the last few days I have received a set of queries about my research. The first one I thought was legitimate, and I was planning to answer when the second arrived, and then the third, from the same sender.

Viewed together, they’re clearly LLM generated.

🧵'I don’t know what the endgame is from these messages....

But spamming seemingly informed and good faith questions of scientists serves as a DDOS attack on the field.'

@kowb.bsky.social may know more, but I haven't chatted with PP in a while.

Exactly!

What I'm trying to add to this discussion: science needs defending on two fronts. Fix problematic research, yes. AND also name and call out the weaponisation of science for what it is.

'Real sleuths are pro-science - even the Scots' 😂

Black scholars face anonymous accusations in anti-DEI crusade Since right-wing firebrand Christopher Rufo helped bring down Harvard’s president, at least seven more scholars—most of them Black—have confronted accusations of plagiarism or research misconduct spre...

Same person but different coverage www.insidehighered.com/news/diversi...

Scientific sleuths come in from the cold Research integrity investigators are starting to organize, but the field, and the people, remain idiosyncratic

Research sleuths are starting to organize, but the field, and the people, remain idiosyncratic — my latest for @cenmag.bsky.social:

cen.acs.org/research-int...

@mcintold.bsky.social, @reeserichardson.bsky.social, @elisabethbik.bsky.social, @sholtodavid.bsky.social,
@eugenie-reich.bsky.social

‘You Hand Them a Knife’: After Claudine Gay’s Ouster, Historians Worry About Weaponization of Plagiarism At their annual conference, the scholars pondered a new reality in which citations and footnotes become new fronts in the culture wars.

Here is one example www.chronicle.com/article/you-...

If I have to synthesize the audience "chafing" to @mcintold.bsky.social 's powerful talk it's this: LM points to inherent systems threats that have to be addressed by systems/collective action and her solutions are focused on vetting individuals. The linking to art verification: provenance etc

@mcintold.bsky.social #R2R2026 "Openness w/o structural maturity accelerates contamination. ecurity without openness risks authoritarian control. Goal of #openscience is resilience. Correction requires infrastructure, expectation setting, monitoring, oversight - not just norms."

"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire." That's what we need to be doing: Giovanni Malagó Open Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. How can we be resilient? #R2R2026 #openscience #Researchintegrity #academicsky #sciencesky #scisky #polisky #openaccess

⚠️ NEW blog post: "Access Isn’t Trust" by our VP of #ResearchIntegrity & Security, Dr Leslie McIntosh.

With #AI aggregating research, we have ease of information - but do we trust it?

"...our insights could be built on sand."

🔗 Read her post at the #FoSci Substack: https://ow.ly/ch4N50Yhti3

Digital Science and Silverchair partner to bring researcher screening into workflows - Research Information Supporting the integrity of the scholarly record is vital for upholding trust and transparency in research, say partners

Digital Science and Silverchair partner to bring researcher screening into workflows

www.researchinformation.info/news/digital...

Supporting the integrity of the scholarly record is vital for upholding trust and transparency in research, say partners

@digital-science.com

📣 NEW on Substack: "The Battle for Knowledge" by our VP of #ResearchIntegrity & Security, Dr Leslie McIntosh.

"We are now fully engaged in a power struggle over knowledge itself," Leslie writes in her first FoSci post for 2026.

🔗 Join us at the front line - see more here: https://ow.ly/QnIy50XXbCm

Photo of an adorable black white kitten trying to hide under a tiny toy tent but failing quite spectacularly.

Marcel’s camping skills have not improved. 😔

My child asked for “airplane spoon” during dinner and I had to explain that we simply don’t have enough air traffic controllers. Shutdowns have consequences.

@deadneanderthals.bsky.social

It’s very uncomfortable yet we need to speak of these difficult discussions as geopolitical winds change. How are we in science going to deal with how politics dances with science?

Thanks for the shoutout.

Dr. Rene Aquarius @ Radboud UMC discussing - "We need to talk about RS:" fosci.substack.com/p/we-need-to... Shoutout to LM and @digital-science.com work in this space. #OAI14 #researchsecurity #ResearchIntegrity #OpenScience

📣 Webinar on demand: See how publishers can scale research integrity checks with the Dimensions Author Check API.

🔗 Watch the full webinar: https://ow.ly/kaTt50Xn4YQ

Hosted with Research Information, presented by Dr Leslie McIntosh & Tyler Ruse.

#ResearchIntegrity #scholcomm

We may not see dead people - but in this new blog post from Leslie McIntosh, there are ghosts aplenty: "Pepper's Ghosts" of research organizations that never were or will be. 👻

How do these apparitions haunt the realm of #ResearchIntegrity?

🔗 Find out: https://ow.ly/RFMW50Xkm9s

#Halloween2025

NEW post: "Intelligence Gathering in an Era of (Research) Conflict."

Our VP of #ResearchIntegrity & Security, Leslie McIntosh, writes about the war-like operations eroding trust in science, and the need for intelligence to counter them.

🔗 Read more: https://ow.ly/FkZA50X2IjW

Thrilled to be invited @dannykay68.bsky.social .

⚠️ Leslie @mcintold.bsky.social has also written a blog post about the investigation's findings. #ResearchIntegrity

"From Nefarious Networks to Legitimate Funding" - now available to read on the Forensic Scientometrics #FoSci Substack:

🔗 fosci.substack.com/p/from-nefar...

From Shady to Funded Our investigation shows that more than 20 authors tied to Pharmakon now hold legitimate grants worth at least (US equivalent) $6.5 million since 2022. Some had never secured funding before their Pharmakon-linked publications, yet went on to receive awards from national funders in Ireland, Portugal, and Croatia. This is the pivot that should concern us all: fraudulent publications can act as stepping stones to taxpayer-funded research.

If @mcintold.bsky.social ever invites you to a game of hide and seek, decline.

She will find you.

open.substack.com/pub/fosci/p/...