Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in the publication of professional scientific research. It is violation of scientific integrity: violation of the scientific method and of research ethics in science, including in the design, conduct, and reporting of research.
Academic dishonesty, academic misconduct, academic fraud and academic integrity are related concepts that refer to various actions on the part of students that go against the expected norms of a school, university or other learning institution. Definitions of academic misconduct are usually outlined in institutional policies. Therefore, academic dishonesty consists of many different categories of behaviour, as opposed to being a singular concept.
John Roland Darsee is an American physician and former medical researcher. After compiling an impressive list of publications in reputable scientific journals, he was found to have fabricated data for his publications.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) is a comprehensive cancer treatment and research center in Boston, Massachusetts. Dana-Farber is the founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Harvard's Comprehensive Cancer Center designated by the National Cancer Institute, and one of the 15 clinical affiliates and research institutes of Harvard Medical School.
Thereza Imanishi-Kari is an associate professor of pathology at Tufts University. Her research focuses on the origins of autoimmune diseases, particularly systemic lupus erythematosus, studied using mice as model organisms. Previously she had been a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is notable for her role in what became known as the "Baltimore affair", in which a 1986 paper she co-authored with David Baltimore was the subject of research misconduct allegations. Following a series of investigations, she was fully exonerated of the charges in 1996.
In scientific inquiry and academic research, data fabrication is the intentional misrepresentation of research results. As with other forms of scientific misconduct, it is the intent to deceive that marks fabrication as unethical, and thus different from scientists deceiving themselves. There are many ways data can be fabricated. Experimental data can be fabricated by reporting experiments that were never conducted, and accurate data can be manipulated or misrepresented to suit a desired outcome. One of the biggest problems with this form of scientific fraud is that "university investigations into research misconduct are often inadequate, opaque and poorly conducted. They challenge the idea that institutions can police themselves on research integrity."
Marc D. Hauser is an American evolutionary biologist and a researcher in primate behavior, animal cognition and human behavior and neuroscience. Hauser was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1998 to 2011. In 2010 Harvard found him guilty of research misconduct, specifically fabricating and falsifying data, after which he resigned. Because Hauser's research was financed by government grants, the Office of Research Integrity of the Health and Human Services Department also investigated, finding in 2012 that Hauser had fabricated data, manipulated experimental results, and published falsified findings.
Brian Wansink is an American former professor and researcher who worked in consumer behavior and marketing research. He was the executive director of the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) from 2007 to 2009 and held the John S. Dyson Endowed Chair in the Applied Economics and Management Department at Cornell University, where he directed the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.
Dan Ariely is an Israeli-American professor and author. He serves as a James B. Duke Professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. Ariely is the co-founder of several companies implementing insights from behavioral science. Ariely wrote an advice column called Ask Ariely in The Wall Street Journal from June 2012 until September 2022. Ariely is the author of the three New York Times best selling books Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality and The Honest Truth about Dishonesty. He co-produced the 2015 documentary (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies.
Jill Lepore is an American historian and journalist. She is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she has contributed since 2005. She writes about American history, law, literature, and politics.
Paolo Macchiarini is a thoracic surgeon and former regenerative medicine researcher who became known for research fraud and manipulative behavior. He was convicted of research-related crimes in Italy and Sweden.
Carlo Maria Croce is an Italian-American professor of medicine at Ohio State University, specializing in oncology and the molecular mechanisms underlying cancer. Croce and his research have attracted public attention because of multiple allegations of scientific misconduct.
Lindsay H. Burns is an American neuroscientist and rower who won a silver medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics. She was a senior vice president of the pharmaceutical company Cassava Sciences until July 2024 and married to its CEO Remi Barbier.
Milena Penkowa is a Danish neuroscientist who was a professor at the Panum Institute at the University of Copenhagen from 2009–2010. In 2010 she was convicted of fraud and embezzlement of funds from The Danish Society of Neuroscience. In the same year, she was suspended by the University of Copenhagen and consequently resigned her professorship. In 2012, the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty concluded that she had been guilty of scientific misconduct. As of 2020 Penkowa has had nine of her research publications retracted, and four others have received expressions of concern.
Haruko Obokata is a former stem-cell biologist and research unit leader at Japan's Laboratory for Cellular Reprogramming, Riken Center for Developmental Biology. She claimed in 2014 to have developed a radical and remarkably easy way to generate stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) cells that could be grown into tissue for use anywhere in the body. In response to allegations of irregularities in Obokata's research publications involving STAP cells, Riken launched an investigation that discovered examples of scientific misconduct on the part of Obokata. Attempts to replicate Obokata's STAP cell results failed. The ensuing STAP cell scandal gained worldwide attention.
Annarosa Leri is a medical doctor and former associate professor at Harvard University. Along with former professor Piero Anversa, Leri was engaged in biomedical research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School. Since at least 2003 Anversa and Leri had investigated the ability of the heart to regenerate damaged cells using cardiac stem cells.
Uri Simonsohn is a behavioral scientist at ESADE business school in Ramon Llull University in Barcelona, Spain, and a Senior Fellow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His substantive interest is in Judgment and Decision Making, and he is also a methodologist.
Jonathan Neal Pruitt is a former academic researcher. He was an Associate Professor of behavioral ecology and Canada 150 Research Chair in Biological Dystopias at McMaster University. Pruitt's research focused primarily on animal personalities and the social behavior of spiders and other organisms.
Data Colada is a blog dedicated to investigative analysis and replication of academic research, focusing in particular on the validity of findings in the social sciences.
