Multidisciplinary Mega‑Journals: Has Their Time Passed?

    Over the past decade, multidisciplinary and so‑called “mega‑journals” became some of the most attractive destinations for researchers under pressure to publish quickly and visibly. These journals often run by large commercial publishers such as Elsevier, Springer Nature, MDPI, Frontiers, and others offered broad scopes, rapid peer review, and open access visibility across many disciplines at once, as described in this Science news article on fast‑growing open‑access journals losing their Impact Factors (https://www.science.org/content/article/fast-growing-open-access-journals-stripped-coveted-impact-factors). Titles like Science of the Total Environment (Elsevier), Heliyon (Elsevier), Environmental Science and Pollution Research (Springer Nature), and several MDPI flagship journals grew explosively, sometimes publishing tens of thousands of papers per year, powered in large part by special issues and guest‑edited collections, a pattern analyzed by Clarke & Esposito in “Not So Special” (https://www.ce-strategy.com/the-brief/not-so-special/) and in a blog documenting the delisting of an MDPI mega‑journal (https://mahansonresearch.weebly.com/blog/mdpi-mega-journal-delisted-by-clarivate-web-of-science). 

    For many academics, especially early‑career researchers, this model looked like an efficient way to secure publications, metrics, and citations in a hyper‑competitive environment, as commentators note when connecting high volume, APC‑driven business models, and evaluation pressure1. However, the very features that drove their success also exposed serious weaknesses. The huge volume of submissions and the proliferation of special issues created structural vulnerabilities in editorial oversight and peer review, an issue explored in depth in work on “special issue‑ization” as a growth and revenue strategy (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08989621.2024.2374567). Guest editors were sometimes appointed in large numbers and given substantial autonomy, and in this environment, paper mills and unethical actors found an opportunity to slip low‑quality or fabricated manuscripts into the literature, a risk repeatedly flagged in publishing‑industry commentary and retraction case reports. Investigations in several journals uncovered patterns of fake peer reviewers, manipulated identities, and suspicious citation behaviors, prompting growing concern that parts of the mega‑journal ecosystem had become a conduit for unreliable science, as summarized in various Retraction Watch investigations into fake peer review and paper mills (https://retractionwatch.com/). In response, major indexing and metrics bodies began to act. Clarivate, which manages the Web of Science and Journal Impact Factor, delisted waves of journals across publishers in 2023 and beyond, many of them broad‑scope or multidisciplinary titles heavily reliant on special issues; an accessible summary is provided by the University of Portsmouth’s note “Web of Science de‑lists 82 journals” (https://researchandinnovationportsmouth.com/2023/03/30/web-of-science-de-lists-82-journals/). 

    Reports highlighted that some fast‑growing open‑access journals had their Impact Factors stripped after being removed from Web of Science, signaling that rapid growth was no longer enough to guarantee long‑term index status, which the Science article above details. Individual cases, such as MDPI’s International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Springer Nature titles such as Applied Nanoscience and Environmental Science and Pollution Research, and other mega‑journals, drew particular attention as examples of how quickly a once‑popular venue could lose or risk its indexed status when quality signals deteriorated; some of these are discussed in the MDPI delisting blog and Springer Nature’s page on discontinued and ceased journals (https://support.springernature.com/en/support/solutions/articles/6000223249-discontinued-and-ceased-journals-published-by-springer-nature). Elsevier’s Science of the Total Environment illustrates just how far this scrutiny can go. The journal was first placed “on hold” and later removed from Web of Science coverage following concerns about peer‑review integrity and clustered problematic articles, even while it continues to publish on ScienceDirect, as noted on its own integrity and news pages on ScienceDirect (https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/science-of-the-total-environment/about/news/commitment-to-research-integrity-and-publishing-ethics). 

    Similar pressure has touched other high‑volume titles such as Heliyon, as well as Springer Nature’s Environmental Science and Pollution Research and related multidisciplinary or broad‑scope journals across publishers, with temporary holds, reevaluations, and more intensive audits becoming increasingly common; this trend is visible across news on mega‑journals being put “on hold” and in Clarivate‑related delisting summaries. At the same time, large publishers have retracted dozens of articles linked to fake companies, fabricated peer review, or paper‑mill patterns, underscoring that the challenge is systemic rather than limited to a handful of outliers, as documented in Retraction Watch reports on fake companies and suspicious authorship changes (e.g., https://retractionwatch.com/2025/05/14/dozens-of-elsevier-papers-retracted-over-fake-companies-and-suspicious-authorship-changes/). 

    This evolving situation has led many researchers to feel that the “time” of multidisciplinary mega‑journals, at least in their original, growth‑at‑all‑costs form, may be ending. It would be inaccurate to declare these journals dead: many remain indexed, widely cited, and capable of publishing rigorous work, and some are actively reforming their editorial and special‑issue policies, as publisher communications on integrity reforms suggest. But the era in which broad scope, high throughput, and minimal editorial friction were celebrated as unqualified virtues is clearly over; Clarivate’s criteria and recent delistings show that research integrity and content relevance now carry more weight than raw volume. Indexers deploy data‑driven tools to detect anomalies in submission patterns, authorship networks, and citations, and they are increasingly willing to delist entire journals when red flags accumulate, elevating the stakes for publishers and editorial boards. The reputational risk has shifted from authors alone to journals and publishers, forcing a reconsideration of practices that once seemed simply efficient and commercially attractive. For authors, the implications are direct and practical. Multidisciplinary venues can still be useful, especially for genuinely cross‑cutting work, but due diligence is now essential, a point stressed in university and library advisories on delisted journals and responsible journal selection. Before submitting, researchers should verify whether the journal is currently indexed in Web of Science and Scopus, check if it has recently been delisted or placed on hold, and examine the balance between regular issues and special issues, using Web of Science lists, Scopus discontinued‑journal lists, and publisher support pages as quick checks. 

    Looking at retraction and correction activity can also help distinguish journals that actively manage integrity problems from those that ignore them, since visible, timely corrections often signal a functioning editorial quality‑control system rather than weakness, as many Retraction Watch case studies imply. In this new landscape, sustainable prestige will likely belong not to the loudest or largest multidisciplinary journals, but to those that can show convincing evidence of robust peer review, restrained publication volume, and transparent governance, regardless of publisher brand. The mega‑journal model is not disappearing, but it is being forced to mature—and that shift may ultimately benefit both science and the researchers who depend on it by rewarding rigor over sheer output. 

Useful links:

 https://www.ce-strategy.com/the-brief/not-so-special/ https://www.science.org/content/article/fast-growing-open-access-journals-stripped-coveted-impact-factors https://mahansonresearch.weebly.com/blog/mdpi-mega-journal-delisted-by-clarivate-web-of-science https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08989621.2024.2374567 https://retractionwatch.com/2025/05/14/dozens-of-elsevier-papers-retracted-over-fake-companies-and-suspicious-authorship-changes/ https://researchandinnovationportsmouth.com/2023/03/30/web-of-science-de-lists-82-journals/ https://support.springernature.com/en/support/solutions/articles/6000223249-discontinued-and-ceased-journals-published-by-springer-nature https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/science-of-the-total-environment/about/news/commitment-to-research-integrity-and-publishing-ethics-science-of-the-total-environment https://retractionwatch.com/2024/09/30/web-of-science-puts-mega-journals-cureus-and-heliyon-on-hold/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/125756w/fastgrowing_openaccess_journals_stripped_of/ https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/sanctioning-of-50-journals-raises-concerns-over-special-issues-in-mega-journals/4017315.article https://sites.aub.edu.lb/lmeho/ri2/delisted/ https://journalsearches.com/blog/scopus-discontinued-journals-list.php https://www.jmis.org/board/view?b_name=bo_notice&bo_id=18&per_page= https://journalology.kit.com/posts/journalology-22-delisted https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36996220/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/985792791507045/posts/6101767359909537/ https://www.ce-strategy.com/the-brief/end-to-end/ https://www.osa-openscienceaustria.at/fast-growing-open-access-journals-stripped-of-coveted-impact-factors/