Found more profiles (all Hofstra affiliated):

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Erriol-Tomas Update 22-08-2025 in the meantime removed

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John-Jining Update 22-08-2025 in the meantime removed

The fraud by this person Ruchit Parekh is endless. The following ‘paper’

Article Progress and obstacles in the use of artificial intelligence...

Harle, S.M. Advancements and challenges in the application of artificial intelligence in civil engineering: a comprehensive review. Asian J Civ Eng 25, 1061–1078 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42107-023-00760-9

The reference list is identical and the first part I can check (see enclosed files) is simply paraphrased but is exactly lifted from the original text.

This plagiarized text is used (simply changing the title and a made-up author name) to produce the following fabricated/fake/virtually non-existing papers:

Article Cybersecurity Risk Management and Privacy in AI-Powered Deci...

or a paper where these imposters added 100+ references that are not present in the original paper:

Article A decision framework for privacy-preserving synthetic data generation

by the two fake profiles in my previous reply...

PS. This is not the only plagiarised 'paper' of this imposter in this 'journal' see my reply here https://www.researchgate.net/post/International_Journal_of_Science_and_Research_Archive_is_it_predatory

I urge dedicated RG members to report this profile and demand:

-Removal of this profile https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ruchit-Parekh-4 Update 17-08-2025: finally removed

-Removal of the ‘papers’ in this profile (they are either fake or plagiarized) Update 17-08-2025: no longer linked to the profile of this imposter but references and citation info is still there...

-Removal of the following profiles all Hofstra affiliated (most likely all set-up by this imposter)

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dona-Marel Update 17-08-2025: finally removed

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chelse-Mario in the meantime removed

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Morris-Groom in the meantime removed

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Erriol-Tomas Update 22-08-2025 in the meantime removed

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John-Jining Update 22-08-2025 in the meantime removed

-Removal of the ‘papers’ in these profiles (they are fake and only ‘exist’ here on RG or are plagiarized) Update 17-08-2025: Again the 'papers' of the profiles that are removed are no longer linked to them BUT the 'papers' are still polluting the RG database...

-Removal of the papers (info) they uploaded in other profiles and did not write. This is/was done with no other purpose than to upload manipulated versions with additional references which are not present in the original papers Update 17-08-2025: Nothing is done (yet?)

There should be no consideration for those acting so utterly dishonest.

Unfortunately, there are people who use ResearchGate to promote themselves improperly. I recently published two cases of improper appropriation in a Letter to the Editor (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374089045_Coauthorship_Substitution_in_Virtual_Scientific_Repositories). I have a good response from RG.

Dear Rob, I think that you might write to RG: [email protected] and/or make a consult ticket. I have a rapid response. Best regards.

Dear Rob Keller , I do not have rapid response from ResearchGate, as Aldo . Calzolari does. How about Your experience with ResearchGate feedback after reporting?

I have reported profile of Ruchit Parekh. Let us see the response time of ResearchGate, not the e-mail notification generated by AI, but the removal of the profile by ResearchGate!

Dear Ljubomir Jacić

As always it is a mixed picture. Some reports are handled relatively quickly, like the string of fake profiles that flooded RG awhile ago. But when it comes to this Ruchit person it is very disappointing. The biggest example of his fraud Deleted research item The research item mentioned here has been deleted

A Review on Harnessing Cold Energy for Power Conversion in Sustainability Practice

which is a copy of the original paper

Article Sustainability by means of cold energy utilisation-to-power ...

Unfortunately, RG does not seem to understand (is unwilling to understand) the severity of this kind of fraud and ‘hide’ between meaningless remarks like “the publisher/one of the authors is/are the only one authored to report” etc.

For all my reports of a series of plagiarized papers as discussed here https://www.researchgate.net/post/International_Journal_of_Science_and_Research_Archive_is_it_predatory I received no response (and no action).

I hope that multiple reports from (as many as possible) RG members will force them to act.

Best regards.

PS. Indeed removal of this profile is the only justified and effective method. I just notice that his fake/fabricated/stolen paper entitled “Local Waste Management Green Parties on Policies The Impact of?” which was removed as a response to my report a while ago is in the meantime replaced by the same paper with a simply changed title

Deleted research item The research item mentioned here has been deleted

Article Do Green Parties Affect Local Waste Management Policies?

(see for more details here https://rcakeller.blogspot.com )

Thanks dear Rob Keller for such detailed and very argumentative and informative reply. Let us hope that we are not "Don Quixote and Sancho Panza" in this longitudinal mission.

I have got feedback from Sam ([email protected]) asking for links to the article(s), as I have reported profile of Ruchit Parekh. I have updated my communication. Let us hope that ResearchGate action will come soon dear Rob Keller !

Dear Ljubomir Jacić Thanks again for yet another attempt to urge RG to take action against this obvious fraudster. The response to your report is again somewhat disappointing. Asking for links while his whole profile is full of obvious examples of fraud is just an act of annoying procrastination.

Out of sheer annoyance I sended yet another report in the hope that someone really takes the time to see the seriousness of this case and finally act.

Best regards.

PS. I am afraid that the Don Quixote analogy crossed my mind several times during this process which takes way too much time and effort before someone at RG realise the seriousness of this case.

I got the second reply from ResearchGate, very disappointing one. You were right dear Rob Keller . Did You get the identical (AI) reply?

"Dear Ljubomir, Thank you for contacting us regarding content on our site.  As operator of the ResearchGate platform, we have no knowledge of the true authorship or rights that may pertain to any particular content. We rely on the interested parties to report potential issues to us.  Based on a review of your report, the legal basis for your claim is currently unclear to us. Plagiarism is sometimes used to refer to a person emulating or leveraging another person’s work or ideas and giving the impression that the ideas are their own, normally while not providing proper attribution. This tends to be handled as an ethical matter. Copyright infringement, on the other hand, normally requires copying of protected expression, not ideas. It may involve copying text or images without authorization, and is a legal matter. Sometimes the two can overlap, but not always. ResearchGate is only able to assist with copyright claims. If your complaint is strictly one of plagiarism or copying of ideas, it is better directed to the relevant publisher, university, or academic body.  If you determine that the public display of the content amounts to a copyright infringement and you hold sufficient rights and are authorized to report the infringement, you can request that we disable access to the content by submitting a Notice of Claimed Copyright Infringement. Note that the rights of authors to report infringements are often governed by license agreements between the authors and publishers. As applicable laws require that your notice follow a specific form, we ask that you please use our standard form available here. Among other things, the form asks you to provide a contact email address that we can give to the uploader of the content in case they have questions about your request. If you do not have the relevant rights to submit a Notice of Claimed Copyright Infringement, we suggest you ask the publisher to do so. For more information about our reporting policies and the required information, please see our Intellectual Property Policy.  Please note that, if you do submit a Notice of Claimed Copyright Infringement, our only action would be to remove the identified content from our platform. To the extent that you wish to take further action with respect to the publishing of this article, you will need to contact the publisher directly. Kind regards,

Sam

ResearchGate Community Support"

Dear Ljubomir Jacić Yep this is exactly one of the responses I received. A standard reaction and again no sign that really someone had a serious look at the profile. Simply hide behind some legal excuse (which in some cases might be fully correct but is in this case not the issue) is very disappointing.

The imposters are treated with way too many respect: what is needed are rigorous measurements...removal of the content and profile of this imposter!

Hopefully other RG members will continue to report this person (and so many of the other imposters here on RG), at some point RG will have to act.

Best regards.

Hi. Very recently, appeared in Nature an interview about the issue: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02182-w (august 5, 2025). Best regards.

Aldo . Calzolari , that is right. This interview is based on the following research article:

Metrics fraud on ResearchGate

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157724001160?via%3Dihub

Dear Ljubomir Jacić Wolfgang R. Dick and others following this matter. Finally some good news! The profile of this imposter Ruchit Parekh is (finally) removed. It is sad to see how much time and effort it took before this happened, to give you an impression:

-I mobilized some dedicated RG members to report this imposter

-I send countless reports to RG and focused on the most serious fraud (stealing Elsevier papers by just adjusting the authors and title)

-I informed the authors of these Elsevier papers and asked them to report this to RG and asked them to activate the journals (and Elsevier as well)

-I informed the authors of a number of the papers which have been plagiarized by this imposter and ask them to report this to RG and ask them to activate the journal in which they published as well

-I created a number of PubPeer posts to report the plagiarism by this imposter, see for example https://pubpeer.com/publications/65D04389BD83374630995FCAB91F66

I am afraid that only the action of the authors (and the publishers behind the papers) who were the victim of plagiarism really forced RG to act. Anyway, the good news is that this obvious imposter is removed from this platform

Best regards.

PS. The bad news is that unfortunately RG refuse to act on for example all the Hofstra affiliated fake profiles.

More importantly they are unwilling (or unable) to act on the phenomenon (which was new to me) that these fake profiles uploaded versions of papers (not authored by them) on in other researchers’ profiles in order to add dozens of references (which primarily benefit this imposter), see for example

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385419287_Artificial_intelligence_and_the_digitalization_of_finance_in_Latin_America_evidence_from_Brazil the reference list is NOT the reference list of the original paper (the person who uploaded this fake paper with non-existing references is in the meantime remove either by RG or by themselves).

It is a mess and underlines the message in the recent paper https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02182-w RG is facing a huge challenge and action is required.

My personal recommendation would be: create some sort of an advisory board of dedicated RG members that can communicate with the RG team directly and the commitment for a more constructive attitude of this RG team to act after receiving well substantiated reports.

Very hard work, Rob. Congratulations. I hope that RG coud improve their quality...

Dear Aldo . Calzolari Thanks, very much appreciated. I've spent a significant amount of my holidays to dig into this matter. So, getting finally the news that it had some effect makes it all worthwhile I guess.

Kind regards,

Rob

Finally good news dear Rob Keller . I support your proposal for advisory board of dedicated RG members...! There are many such profiles being reported that we are waiting to be banned. Such RG inertia sometimes hurts!

My sincere congratulations.

Kind regards,

Ljubomir