Search Page

A world-renowned expert on the reduction of risks involved in heart surgery has been dismissed from Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, after violation of academic integrity. In one study it was found that he used patient data without permission, used fictitious data, and that two reports were submitted to conferences which included knowingly unreliable data.

Weeks after Germany's defense minister was forced to resign in a plagiarism scandal, three German universities say they are investigating similar complaints about the academic work of three figures from the country's political sphere.

As Pakistan's Election Commission began its first hearings into parliamentarians' fake degrees last week some feared the scandal had been pushed out of the limelight by the devastating floods. Nonetheless, the degree debacle is straining the credibility of the country's higher education and election systems.

New international guidelines and a voluntary code on research integrity are being drawn up as a result of consultations at the Second World Conference on Scientific Integrity held in Singapore in July. The initiative is intended to combat rising incidences of scientific fraud, plagiarism and other research falsification and serve as a "guide for professionally responsible research practices throughout the world".

Could student plagiarism actually be reduced? And could it be reduced not through fear of being caught, but through... education? The evidence in a study released earlier in January suggests that the answer to both questions is 'yes' - which could be welcome news to academics who constantly complain about students who either don't know what plagiarism is or do not follow the rules about the integrity of assignments.

Different rules in different countries often make it harder for international students to understand what is and what isn't allowed. While a student may understand plagiarism, it can be difficult for them to grasp the concept of cheating.

The ministry of Higher education and research entrusted to the national Centre of scientific research (CNRS) a mission on scientific integrity. Scientific fraud is varied: biased manufacturing or forgery of results, biased interpretation or selection of data, alteration of curves or images, plagiarism, theft of ideas, financial profit-sharing's ... The increasing pressure which practices on the researchers (among which the career and the credits depend strictly on the quantity of articles and on produced results) tend to multiply the fraudulent practices.