16 June 2026
Digital Science has launched Dimensions Citation Check – offering journal editors a practical, scalable tool to help safeguard research integrity.
Citation Check is an API-based editorial tool that automatically detects self-citation in manuscript submissions, evaluates each instance in context, and returns a clear risk rating to support editors’ decision-making before papers reach peer review.
The tool is the latest addition to Digital Science’s world-leading research integrity portfolio, alongside Dimensions Author Check – designed to help the research community uphold integrity and trust in the scholarly record.
Self-citation is a recognized integrity risk in academic publishing. While a degree of self-citation is entirely appropriate, excessive or gratuitous use inflates citation metrics, obscures a paper’s originality, and can place a journal’s indexing standing in jeopardy.
Identifying that risk has traditionally relied on manual reference review – an approach that is time-consuming, inconsistent across editorial teams, and difficult to sustain at scale.
Dimensions Citation Check API changes this, bringing consistent, objective integrity screening to every submission. Editors upload manuscript PDFs as received, and the tool does the rest:
- Resolves author identities against the Dimensions database – the world’s largest interconnected global research database
- Pinpoints self-citations at the sentence level
- Applies scoring to assess whether each citation is justified in context or appears gratuitous – surfacing the reasoning behind every risk flag
- Returns a structured report with a clear risk rating
Citation Check connects to existing submission management systems via API and supports batch processing of manuscripts – making it well-suited to publishers managing high submission volumes.
The tool is designed to support editorial judgment, flagging risks and explaining its reasoning while leaving final decisions – and the journal’s integrity – in the hands of the editors.
Dr Leslie McIntosh, VP of Research Integrity & Security, Digital Science, said: “Editorial teams need easier ways to reach more confident decisions – and citations are a core component of trusted research. Context determines whether a citation is legitimate or problematic, and that judgment needs to be delivered quickly and consistently, at scale. Dimensions Citation Check gives editorial teams an objective, evidence-based signal – with integrity screening becoming part of the normal workflow.”
Dr Bob Schijvenaars, VP of Data Science & Infrastructure, Digital Science, said: “Dimensions has always been about turning connected research data into something actionable and meaningful. Citation Check draws on the depth and accuracy of the Dimensions database to resolve references and author identities reliably, and provide editors with context they can act on with confidence. That combination – scale, accuracy, and contextual assessment – is what distinguishes this from simpler reference-counting approaches.”
Discover more about Dimensions Citation Check.