scientific integrity

In a sample of academic articles retracted by medical journals, the proportion of female authors is lower than the overall share of female researchers in these fields. "The underrepresentation of women among retracted authors, particularly for misconduct-related retractions, may reflect systemic gender imbalances in academia rather than differences in scientific integrity," writes the author of the study in PLoS One. His analysis, based on 878 retracted publications in nine clinical areas, estimates that 16.5% of the first authors of retracted papers were female, while the proportion of first authors of biomedical publications exceeds 40%.

While preparing a systematic review of animal studies on subarachnoid hemorrhage —a particular type of stroke— a Dutch team detected suspicious images and redirected their research: they analyzed 608 publications considered relevant, looking for potential problems with their results. Their findings indicate that 243 (40%) contained duplicate or potentially manipulated images, raising doubts about their reliability. The vast majority (87%) originated in China, and only 22% had been corrected. According to the researchers, these findings “could explain why, despite hundreds of animal studies published in this field, we still lack effective treatments for early brain injury in patients with hemorrhagic stroke”. The results are published in Plos Biology. 

From fabricated research to paid authorships and citations, organized scientific fraud is on the rise, according to a new study published today in the journal PNAS. Although concerns about scientific misconduct typically focus on isolated individuals, the study uncovered sophisticated global networks of people and entities that systematically collaborate to undermine the integrity of academic publishing. According to the authors, the problem is so widespread that the publication of fraudulent science is growing at a faster rate than that of legitimate scientific publications.

According to a survey conducted in Spain, with 403 respondents from the biomedical research field, four out of ten admit to having committed some type of misconduct in their work. The press regularly reports on scandals in science. Among the most recent cases, El País reported that the CSIC has opened a disciplinary proceeding against five individuals suspected of receiving money in exchange of false affiliations. These cases of misconduct may seem isolated, but they reflect broader dysfunction of the research system. In this guide, we provide keys to better understand how these cases arise and evolve, and to cover their nuances. 

In a recent study of the experiences of biomedical researchers in Spain, 43% of respondents admitted to having intentionally committed some form of scientific misconduct. The most frequent kind of misconduct was false authorship of scientific articles: 35% of the 403 respondents said they had been involved in some instance of it, says the study published in the journal Accountability in Research. Ten per cent of respondents reported a lack of informed consent, and 3.6 per cent admitted to having been involved at least once in falsification or manipulation of data.