“There has been negligence”: Biologist banned for one year by German funding agency

As a consequence for academic “negligence” which resulted in two retractions, biologist Jens Schwamborn was banned from seeking funding from German funding agency DFG for one year.

The ban — which ended in March, 2015 — was the result of an investigation by DFG and the University of Münster, which reviewed the issues that led to retractions of two papers about neuron development, one in The EMBO Journal, and another in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. 

Here’s the official statement on the ban, sent to us by Head of Communications Britta Schlüter at the University of Luxembourg, where Schwamborn now works:

Both the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) as well as a commission at the University of Münster have checked the allegations against Prof Jens Schwamborn that led to the withdrawal of the scientific publications in EMBO and JBC. Both commissions came in late 2013 or early 2014 to the conclusion that there has been negligence. Accordingly, Professor Schwamborn has been banned for one year for applications to the DFG (03/2014 – 03/2015). Although the work is not directly associated with the University of Luxembourg, but concerns Prof Schwamborn’s scientific activity at the University of Münster in the years 2002 to 2006, the management of the University of Luxembourg (incl. Ethics Committee) was fully informed since the allegations in summer 2013 and a strategy of maximum transparency was pursued. The University of Luxembourg has acknowledged the decision of the DFG and follows the principle that no multiple punishment should be applied for the same misbehaviour.

As we reported in December 2014, it was an anonymous critic who sent queries to DFG that put the investigation in motion.

In 2014, the DFG funded 30,000 projects, which received more than 2.8 billion euros.

We contacted Schwamborn and received an “out of office” reply.

Leonid Schneider, who alerted us to the development, has a report on the case in Laborjournal, written in German.

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