Karolinska Institutet may reopen its misconduct investigation into acclaimed surgeon Paolo Macchiarini following new allegations revealed during a documentary series by Swedish Television. According to a recent statement from KI:
EMBO has taken back an award given to beleaguered plant biologist Olivier Voinnet in 2009, and is investigating a recent grantee who had a paper retracted from Nature Genetics yesterday. The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) “promotes excellence in the life sciences” in Europe, in part by awarding prizes to promising young scientists. Voinnet and Sonia Melo earned their awards by … Continue reading EMBO takes back Voinnet’s award, investigates other awardee who just lost a Nature Genetics paper
When our co-founders launched the site in 2010, they wondered whether there would be enough retractions to write about on a regular basis. Five+ years and three full-time staffers later, and we simply don’t have the time to cover everything that comes across our desk. In 2012, we covered a group of duplication retractions in a … Continue reading You’ve been dupe’d: Meet authors who like their work so much, they publish it twice
A faculty member at Arizona State University has resigned after he was placed on administrative leave while the university investigated plagiarism charges against him. According to a copy of the settlement agreement obtained by the Arizona Republic, he will continue to receive his salary of more than $150,000 for more than one year. He will also be … Continue reading ASU prof resigns following plagiarism charges, receives $150k+ salary until May 2017
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) has dismissed an anonymous accusation against economist Peter Nijkamp and two of his colleagues, including one of his graduate students, regarding issues related to “data acquisition and data processing.” The announcement, released last week, determined the latest complaint was “unfounded:”
Romanian officials are taking a stand against a long-standing oddity in the law that entitles prisoners to 30 days off their jail sentence for every piece of academic writing they author. The crackdown is occurring after a surge in jail literature in the last two years— approximately 200 inmates have authored around 400 scientific works … Continue reading Romanian law shortens jail time for prisoners who write books. (They may ax it.)
A paper published this October in the journal Frontiers In Neuroscience was retracted the following month because the authors’ collaborators did not give them permission to publish some of the data. The paper detailed how and why the authors use the software program Nengo to test large simulations of nervous system networks. As part of … Continue reading Neuroscience paper retracted after colleagues object to data publication
SEOUL — In one of the single biggest instances of misconduct we’ve ever come across, prosecutors in South Korea are seeking up to 18 months’ prison time for 75 professors who are among those charged with plagiarizing science and engineering textbooks wholesale. Prosecutors say that since the 1980s, 179 professors at 110 universities across the … Continue reading Korean prosecutors seek jail time for professors in massive plagiarism scheme
The week at Retraction Watch featured more installments in the seemingly never-ending story of fake peer reviews. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Nature Publishing Group is retracting three papers today, after an investigation found evidence the peer-review process had been compromised. The publisher issued a statement saying they had notified corresponding authors and institutions associated with the three papers, which were all published last year in the journals Cancer Gene Therapy and Spinal Cord. Here’s the note that’s going … Continue reading “Compromised” peer review hits three papers from Nature Publishing Group