WIKIMEDIA, KEITH BURTIS
What should happen to scientists found guilty of research misconduct? They are often banned from receiving government funding for a period and sometimes fired from their university positions, but what then? According to one ethicist, rehabilitation is an option.
Incidences of fraud and fabrication, or at least the number of scientists that get caught for such offenses, are on the rise. The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) received 419 accusations in 2012, almost double the number they received the year before, the agency’s director David Wright told Nature. Plenty of ink is spilled on the details of the cases, but there is little focus on how to deal with the guilty scientists.
That’s why James DuBois, an ethicist at St. Louis University, has setup a ...
