To test the first hypothesis, we merged the 165 entries from the RWDB
① with the 73 retracted papers from WoS, creating a new dataset of 188 unique retractions involving works published by Romanian authors between 2000 and 2022. We stopped at 2022 because, according to the RWDB data, the average distance between publication and retraction is around two years (Van Noorden,
2025). To test the second hypothesis, we zoomed in from the overall WoS output to retracted WoS articles and review articles, comparing pre- and post-reform periods for Romania, and two groups of countries, one from East Europe (i.e., Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, and Ukraine), and the other one from West Europe (i.e., Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Austria, and Ireland).