Research ethics

Large numbers of editors publishing in their own special issue attacked as ‘academic narcissism’ and ‘scientific misconduct’ in first-of-its-kind study

Indian campaigner Achal Agrawal says research watchdog he founded gets tens of tip-offs regarding suspected malpractice every day

Little-noticed joint efforts by publishers to catch fake papers are delivering results but further ‘scaling’ is needed, says report

The £2 million recently awarded to a whistleblower by a US court is a rare reward for the volunteers who trawl the scientific literature for error and fraud. Yet their numbers continue to grow. So what drives them? And can their efforts ever cleanse more than a drop in a troubled ocean? Jack Grove reports 

Penalties for withdrawn papers and self-citation proposed by Stanford researcher would hit standing of Chinese universities

Disparity reflects broader under-representation of women in senior roles rather than increased likelihood men will make mistakes, researcher says

Chinese researchers worst affected as hundreds excluded from influential ranking because of ‘extreme’ level of authorship

All levels of scientific research must be transparent about where grants come from to avoid ‘manipulation and bias’, global science group says

Views becoming more entrenched on both sides, with roughly equal numbers positive and negative about new technologies, poll finds

Responding to early-career researchers’ honest questions with accusations of misconduct is a travesty of open science, says Madeleine Pownall

Digital Science said its investigation showed how weaknesses in research and publishing systems can be systematically exploited

With academics at ‘increasing risk’ of arbitrary detention, governments and universities must tackle cases in a ‘proactive’ way

Systems in place to deal with fraud struggling to keep up, increasing risk of research becoming ‘completely poisoned’

European universities’ overcompliance with data protection rules is making social research increasingly difficult, say Carine Vassy and Robert Dingwall   

New programme at Northumbria helps those with lived experience take more active role in researching mental health

‘Valuing voices’ checklist hopes to help academics to design research projects with ‘principles of inclusiveness’ in mind

‘Strategic obstruction’ by over-possessive researchers is ‘pervasive’ in some disciplines, forcing many scientists to exit sector, paper claims

National security U-turn ‘cutting Australia off from knowledge creation frontier’ just as US turns its back on collaboration

Bots’ tendency to display ‘unwarranted confidence’ and fixate on ‘pink elephants’ particularly risky in medical research, according to new paper

Institutions taking ‘as long as they like’ over investigations to protect reputations, according to Australian research integrity campaigner

Recording gender identity but not sex perpetuates historical exclusion of women from research, paper argues

Researchers are less likely to cite those accused of sexual misconduct but remain unmoved by fraud allegations, study finds

Dubious design registrations in the UK are being passed off as ‘international patents’ by Indian academics seeking to game promotion criteria, sleuths find

Victor Ponta quit as prime minister amid scandals including a renounced doctorate. Should he be allowed to run for president, asks Ararat Osipian

Highly cited scholars in medicine and life sciences also have papers pulled more often, says Stanford analysis

India-based periodical disciplined by bibliographic group Crossref after sleuths claimed ‘sneaked references’ had been injected into metadata

Better tech alignment, industry guidance and identity verification would all help – as would meaningful and visible punishments, says Kim Eggleton

Controversial study that conducted brainwave training on children in Indigenous areas reveals some troubling truths about Canada’s research system

If we rely on industry to bankroll research, we lose sight of problems that do not interest industry, technologist warns

Two ministers resigned over ‘textual similarities’ in their master’s theses, while one student was acquitted of ‘self-plagiarism’ after taking case to Supreme Court

Misappropriation of junior colleagues’ ideas is a betrayal. Requiring them to wait years for redress adds insult to injury, says Wyn Evans

Academics emphasise importance of transparency and human vetting of journal submissions

Suggested exemptions to ethical approval welcomed, but more progress needed, experts say

Newcastle vice-chancellor says shared approach needed to prevent ‘bad practices’

Quantitative approach could help junior contributors ‘raise their voice’ and get due credit, researcher proposes

Salamanca head Juan Manuel Corchado, accused of artificially inflating citations of his work, denies wrongdoing

The British Museum learned it was wrong to brush off a whistleblower. Universities and journals should do the same, says David Sanders

Two years on from international scandal, Karl Andersson claims he had received nothing but praise for article prior to online outcry

If the choice is between impact factor and maintaining the content’s integrity, there is little contest

University of Arkansas’ decades-old gift traced to raft of disputed research now playing key political role

Preventing publication of two major taxpayer-funded studies into bullying and homelessness is wrong, say academics left in limbo

AI model released by students sparked controversy for similarities to one developed by scientists from Tsinghua University

Academic exploration of leading university’s traditions uncovers dispossession, eugenics and grave robbing

Making people paranoid about employing familiar and useful words is not the way to encourage responsible AI use, say Lilian Schofield and Xue Zhou 

Investigation finds research careers create ‘perverse incentives’ that cause academics to ‘lose sight of boundaries’

As part of annual budget, lawmakers also call for focus on fraud, new funding models and peer review

Boston ethnographer argues that people often disclose more than intended when they close ranks and create obstacles

Poll of researchers finds little support for pulling scholarly papers of those found guilty of objectionable personal behaviour

Editors express concern over dating of soil samples ‘not associated with manmade features’, but authors attack ‘unjust retraction of groundbreaking research’

‘We have an obligation to try something ground-breaking,’ says oncologist confronting co-Australian of the Year’s brain cancer

Penn’s Michael Mann, long-time warrior against fossil fuel denialism, hopes jury repudiation of bloggers brings scientists some relief

Huang Feiruo placed on leave by Huazhong Agricultural University after whistleblowing report circulates widely

Claudine Gay did not plagiarise, and those who add her to the list of leaders who did ignore the hostile context of the accusations, says Harvey Graff

‘I would not accept his evidence as sufficient to establish any scientific proposition at all,’ says ruling

Required remedies include harsher punishments, more flexible research design stipulations and stronger social sanctions, says Akhil Bhardwaj

With Claudine Gay accepting debatable instances of plagiarism as final straw, faculty see odds getting hopeless for countering unified political and economic power

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Claudine Gay case, proper referencing should be insisted on to encourage critical, original thinking, says Ian Pace

Biden officials call for publicising details of bad science allegations brought to the government, raising institutional warnings of privacy and legal violations

Scholars advocate creation of global database after analysing scale of travel, free meals and gifts disbursed by medical sector in France

More rigorous checking targets hyper-authorship, excessive self-citation and unusual patterns of group citation activity