PLOS Issues Expression of Concern for Yangtze River Delta Study

The PLOS One editors have issued an expression of concern for a 2024 case study concerning the digital economy, innovation factor allocation and industrial structure transformation in China’s Yangtze River Delta city cluster. The notice, published on October 21, 2026, states that the article was identified as one of a series of submissions for which the journal has concerns about the integrity or reliability of the peer-review process. Readers are advised to interpret the original study with this issue in mind.

The notice does not report a new scientific finding, identify an error in the paper or evaluate the study’s scientific validity. According to the editors, PLOS did not assess the article’s integrity or scientific validity when following up on the matter. The expression of concern therefore records a concern about the circumstances surrounding peer review rather than announcing that the study’s data, methods or conclusions have been disproved. The editors also state that they have no concerns regarding the authors’ conduct during the peer-review process.

The affected article was published in PLOS One in 2024 under the title “Digital economy, innovation factor allocation and industrial structure transformation—A case study of the Yangtze River Delta city cluster in China.” The supplied notice does not provide the study’s findings, population details, analytical methods, model estimates, uncertainty measures or specific mechanisms linking the subjects named in the title. As a result, the notice does not support conclusions about the relationship between digital-economy development, innovation factors and industrial structure in the region, nor does it establish whether any reported association or causal effect is reliable.

For the wider research record, the immediate effect is that the 2024 article is accompanied by an editorial notice questioning the integrity or reliability of its peer-review process. The notice does not provide details about the submissions or explain the specific basis for the journal’s concerns. It also does not announce a correction, replacement analysis or revised conclusion. The central status of the paper’s scientific validity remains unevaluated in the supplied material, while the issue is sufficiently significant for PLOS One to advise readers to consider it when interpreting the study.

Subject of Research: A PLOS One expression of concern concerning peer-review reliability in a Yangtze River Delta regional-economy case study.

Article Title: Expression of Concern: Digital economy, innovation factor allocation and industrial structure transformation—A case study of the Yangtze River Delta city cluster in China

Article References: The PLOS One Editors (2026). Expression of Concern: Digital economy, innovation factor allocation and industrial structure transformation—A case study of the Yangtze River Delta city cluster in China. PLOS One, 21(10), e0360867. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0360867

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0360867

Keywords: PLOS One, expression of concern, peer review, research integrity, digital economy, innovation factors, industrial structure, Yangtze River Delta, China, Expression, Concern, Digital