The Next Phase of Scientific Fact-Checking: Advanced Evidence Retrieval from Complex Structured Academic Papers

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20844v2
• Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2025 02:57:01 GMT
• Title: The Next Phase of Scientific Fact-Checking: Advanced Evidence Retrieval from Complex Structured Academic Papers
• Authors: Xingyu Deng, Xi Wang, Mark Stevenson,
• Abstract summary: The problem is inherently more complex than general fact-checking since it must accommodate the evolving nature of scientific knowledge.<n>Existing approaches focus on simplified versions of the problem based on small-scale datasets consisting of abstracts.<n>This paper examines the limitations of current scientific fact-checking systems and reveals the potential features and resources that could be exploited to advance their performance.
• Score: 11.88478056313921
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: Scientific fact-checking aims to determine the veracity of scientific claims by retrieving and analysing evidence from research literature. The problem is inherently more complex than general fact-checking since it must accommodate the evolving nature of scientific knowledge, the structural complexity of academic literature and the challenges posed by long-form, multimodal scientific expression. However, existing approaches focus on simplified versions of the problem based on small-scale datasets consisting of abstracts rather than full papers, thereby avoiding the distinct challenges associated with processing complete documents. This paper examines the limitations of current scientific fact-checking systems and reveals the many potential features and resources that could be exploited to advance their performance. It identifies key research challenges within evidence retrieval, including (1) evidence-driven retrieval that addresses semantic limitations and topic imbalance (2) time-aware evidence retrieval with citation tracking to mitigate outdated information, (3) structured document parsing to leverage long-range context, (4) handling complex scientific expressions, including tables, figures, and domain-specific terminology and (5) assessing the credibility of scientific literature. Preliminary experiments were conducted to substantiate these challenges and identify potential solutions. This perspective paper aims to advance scientific fact-checking with a specialised IR system tailored for real-world applications.

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