On Scientific Journals as a Bulwark Against Research Misconduct

By Patrick O’Leary

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how our society regulates the integrity of scientific research in an era of fierce competition for diminishing grants and ultracompetitive academic appointments. When I shared a draft paper on this topic a few weeks ago, several colleagues urged me to think more about the role played by academic journals, so I was interested to see this article in Nature last week about a recently uncovered criminal scam defrauding two European science journals and countless would-be authors. It caught my attention because it seems to belie the notion that the journals and the honest scientific community are sophisticated enough actors to be trusted to root out the fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism that constitute “research misconduct” under Federal law. Needless to say, it takes a different kind of expertise to discern scientific misconduct than to uncover a more mundane phishing scam like the one these cons were running, but the anecdote stands as a nice reminder of the fallibility even of great minds.

Read More