The Rising menace of scholarly black-market: challenges and solutions for improving research in low- and middle-income countries

This editorial aims to bring awareness about paper mills and fake peer-review among the regional and global scientific community. In addition, suggestions are provided to address these unethical practices in low- and middle-income countries. Scholarly black market is a term which often includes fraudulent and questionable publishers, sale and purchase of scientific papers (i.e., paper mills), unprofessional language editing agencies, and unethical (graduate) research supervision.