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Today, a French council was set to confirm the new head of a prominent research institute, the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). But the appointee took the job a few days early, after the interim director stepped down last week — and the speculation about why she left hasn’t stopped ever since.
An official announcement from the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, which runs the CNRS, said Anne Peyroche would be replaced by her expected successor, computer scientist Antoine Petit. Although there have been discussions about some of Peyroche’s work on PubPeer (some of which the authors have responded to, assuaging at least one critic), the announcement provided no reason for the new timetable; a news story in Le Figaro cited health reasons.
A spokesperson for the CNRS told Retraction Watch:
Continue reading Questions swirl around CNRS director’s decision to step down early