On May 28, 2026, during the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) Annual Meeting at the Gaylord Pacific Hotel and Resort in Chula Vista, California, the SSP announced the winners of its 2026 EPIC Awards. NISO’s Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern (CREC) Recommended Practice (NISO RP‑45‑2024) received the EPIC Gold Award in the Integrity Tools category.
The CREC Recommended Practice, published in 2024, establishes standards for the creation, transfer, and display of retraction‑related metadata. It enables publishers, aggregators, full‑text hosts, libraries, and researchers to communicate retraction information efficiently, ensuring that readers can readily identify the status of a publication. Developed and maintained by volunteers, the practice is considered a key tool for promoting transparency in the scholarly record.
NISO Executive Director Todd Carpenter noted that the organization was honored to receive the award and expressed hope that the recognition would encourage broader adoption of the CREC Recommended Practice within the scholarly communications community. He acknowledged the contributions of the CREC Working Group and Standing Committee, emphasizing their efforts to support research integrity.
NISO also recognized the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for funding the CREC Working Group and supporting related research at the University of Illinois’ Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science (RISRS) project, which informed the group’s deliberations and decisions.
The CREC Recommended Practice is freely accessible on the NISO website.
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