Allegations

• Conducting research without ethics approval as required by the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research and the Australian Code for the Care and Use of Animals for Scientific Purposes.
• Failing to conduct research as approved by an appropriate ethics review body.
• Conducting research without the requisite approvals, permits or licences.
• Misuse of research funds.
• Concealment or facilitation of breaches (or potential breaches) of the Code by others.

• Fabrication of research data or source material.
• Falsification of research data or source material.
• Misrepresentation of research data or source material.
• Falsification and/or misrepresentation to obtain funding.

• Plagiarism of someone else's work, including theories, concepts, research data and source material.
• Duplicate publication (also known as redundant or multiple publication, or self-plagiarism) without acknowledgement of the source.

• Failure to appropriately maintain research records.
• Inappropriate destruction of research records, research data and/or source material.
• Inappropriate disclosure of, or access to, research records, research data and/or source material.

• Failure to provide adequate guidance or mentorship on responsible research conduct to researchers or research trainees under their supervision.

• Failure to acknowledge the contributions of others fairly.
• Misleading ascription of authorship including failing to offer authorship to those who qualify or awarding authorship to those who do not meet the requirements.

• Failure to conduct peer review responsibly.

In Australia, while it is mandated that public reporting of research misconduct are to be deidentified, the media has named and shamed some cases to the wider community. Examples are best captured by Fraud and Australian academics or Great moments in academic fraud (Ross 2012). Many other Australian cases are unpublished and unreported for various reasons.

Dr Vishwa Jit Gupta, Professor of Geology at Punjab University, was a renown Indian fossil scientist. The article, Does research misconduct extend beyond biomedicine? (Dhand 2002), or the Himalayan Hoax, is a case of academic fraud that spanned 25 years. Essentially it was a career built on fiction involving 60 co-authors, 7 books and 458 publications. It was exposed when an Australian palaeontologist, John Talent, by chance bought some interesting Moroccan fossils from a rock shop in Paris. Professor Talent recognised the similarity between those rocks and ones he had seen in a Gupta paper.

Gupta's claim that the fossils were from the Himalayas once 'turned the accepted picture of the Himalayas on its head'. Gupta had claimed the fossils came from an area that stretched from Kashmir to Bhutan. This led to the re-writing of Himalayan geology and fossil history. His outing as a fraud rocked the world of geology.

There was much vested interest in Gupta's work as many had built their own careers in collaboration with Gupta. John Talent had to expose Gupta intelligently. He chose a conference at Calgary to present the material from Morocco alongside Gupta's. With Gupta in the front row, Professor Talent presented the fossils simultaneously on a screen.

Gupta's scandalous and brazen act of deception is not without dire consequences for science and other individuals involved.

A recent Canadian case of self-plagiarism reveals a complex web. It involves projects that have received over $10m in funding from Canadian research agencies. It has been hard for a U.S. retraction of research literature watchdog to get comments from the research agencies, university or federal body responsible for research integrity.

This case signals the impact of globalisation on the handling of research misconduct. Global pressure can be positive in lifting the standard of research conduct.

The Wakefield controversy in 1998 (see BMJ 2011;342:c7452 and its correction BMJ 2011;342:d1678), which claimed that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine was linked to autism and bowel disease, saw immunisation levels plummet to the extent that some teenagers today remain unvaccinated. Although Lancet has since retracted the publication and Wakefield debarred by the General Medical Council, questions remain as new evidence refutes fraud findings in the case.

Other cases of allegations of research misconduct in the UK are archived by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

In the U.S., findings of research misconduct are posted on the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) and Federal Register sites. Below are edited extracts of the cases with reference to the Federal Register which provides further details.

6 July 2012
A former Postdoctoral Fellow falsified data in five manuscripts, one poster, four laboratory meeting presentations, one image file, three funded grants, five submitted grant applications. The submitted manuscripts were not accepted for publication. The Respondent's Voluntary Exclusion Agreement is for a period of two years.

28 June 2012
A former Assistant Professor falsified and fabricated cellcount data to falsely report the effects of pesticides in relation to Parkinson's disease. The data files were corrupted by copying a single data file from a previous experiment to generate 293 data files, and renaming the copies to fit the description of 13 new experiments when such data collection was never performed for the questioned research. The files were altered to make them unreadable.

The fabricated data, falsified methodology, and false claims based on the fabricated and falsified data were reported in two grant applications, two publications, a poster, and a manuscript in preparation.

The Respondent was excluded from any contracting or subcontracting work with any U.S. Government agency, and from serving in any advisory capacity in the U.S. Public Health Service, including any advisory committee, board and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant, for seven years. Two published papers were also retracted.

12 May 2012
A former Research Fellow knowingly and intentionally falsified and fabricated data in figures for an unpublished manuscript. The manuscript was accepted by a journal but it was subsequently withdrawn by one of the authors.

For three years, any institution that submits an application for U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) support for a research project on which the Respondent's participation is proposed or that uses the Respondent in any capacity must concurrently submit a plan for supervision of duties to the funding agency for approval. A copy must also be submitted to ORI by the institution.

Further, any institution that employs the Respondent must submit, in conjunction with application for funds or any report, manuscript, or abstract of PHS-funded research in which the Respondent is involved, a certification that the data provided by the Respondent are accurately reported in the application or report. That certification must also be submitted to ORI. The Respondent was also prohibited from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS.

27 February 2012
A former Professor and Chair falsified and/or fabricated data that were included in grant applications, two publications and a manuscript submitted for publication. Bar graphs were altered to make the experiment results appear valid and consistent with the Respondent's hypothesis. The number of animals used were also falsely reported in figure legends and/or text in published papers and grant applications.

The Respondent neither admits nor denies committing research misconduct but has voluntarily agreed to be excluded from any contracting or subcontracting with any agency of the U.S. Government and from eligibility or involvement in nonprocurement programs of the U.S. Government for one year.

The Respondent will also have research supervised for two years. Prior to submitting any grant application, the supervision of the Respondent's duties must be submitted to ORI for approval. A committee of 2-3 senior faculty members at the institution will provide oversight and guidance for two years by reviewing primary data from the Respondent's laboratory on a quarterly basis and submitting a report to ORI biannually. The committee will conduct an advance review of any PHS grant applications, manuscripts, and abstracts.

Any institution employing the Respondent in the two-year supervised period shall also be committed to strict reporting guidelines. The Respondent is excluded from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS for three years.

2 February 2012
A former Research Assistant and Data Base Manager falsified subject enrolment numbers in an application for continued funding. The finding included false statements made, forgery of petty cash receipts, and theft of research grant funds. For five years, the Respondent was debarred from eligibility for, or involvement in, nonprocurement programs of the U.S. Government. The Respondent was also prohibited from serving in any advisory capacity.

2006 and older
A former Research Coordinator of a medical centre has been debarred for life.