Why the Scholarly Publishing Community Has Failed to Contain Predatory Journals? An Institutional and Systemic Analysis

Despite over a decade of awareness and intervention efforts, predatory journals continue to pose a serious threat to the credibility, equity, and integrity of scholarly publishing. This article examines the institutional and systemic failures that have allowed predatory publishing to persist and even expand. While unethical actors remain at the center of the problem, the blame cannot be laid solely at their feet. The academic ecosystem comprising universities, indexing services, commercial publishers, and research institutions has collectively failed to respond with the urgency, coordination, and accountability required. Key failures include fragmented oversight, misaligned academic incentives, inadequate researcher training, opaque indexing policies, and a lack of support for ethical publishing efforts in under-resourced regions. The article offers a comprehensive analysis of how these structural weaknesses have enabled predatory journals to flourish and outlines a series of actionable recommendations for global reform. The conclusion is clear: addressing predatory publishing requires more than awareness. It demands a unified, inclusive, and equity-focused rethinking of how scholarly value is defined, supported, and protected across the world.