Heroes in the Academic Margins
We should talk more about people who responded honorably to the misconduct of close affiliates, and highlight their character as a catalyst for change.
It is widely mentioned that the number of retracted scientific papers is growing rapidly. Over 10,000 papers were retracted in 2023 alone, a number significantly higher than that of previous years. Approximately 8,000 of those were published by Hindawi and collectively surpassed the striking number of 35,000 citations. The rampant misconduct that occurs in Hindawi journals has cost its owner, Wiley, over 18 million USD in a single financial quarter. On net for the entire fiscal year, the losses exceed 35 million USD. Private publishers, however, are not the only ones experiencing financial losses due to bad research. Retracted papers collectively cost the US National Institutes of Health millions of dollars and, arguably most importantly, they delay scientific progress and endanger lives. These two points can be exemplified by the cases of Don Poldermans and Paolo Macchiarini, as well as the large number of citations received by papers following their retraction, which do not cease to persist in the literature.
Publications in academia traditionally function as an economic system, leading to financial and reputational gains for the scientists that produced them. The economic gains include grant money, as well as the increasing use of one-time cash bonuses that are awarded to authors following publication in top journals such as Nature or Science. These have been operating in China for a while now and can exceed 100,000 USD. Scientific contributions are, now more than ever, a form of professional capital that can be converted into tangible career and monetary benefits. It is clear that, as a result, the desire to publish takes precedence over the pursuit of rigor.
Exploring the publication economy further is not within the scope of this essay, however. The information above serves to contextualise the emergence of research fraud and the damage that it inflicts on individual researchers, especially those that expose it.
Calling out BS in science (at your own risk)
The economics of academic misconduct reveal a perverse optimisation problem. Some researchers think that the potential gains from fraudulent high-impact publications (career advancement, financial bonuses, institutional prestige) outweigh the probability of being caught and meaningfully sanctioned. In the past 20 years, numerous researchers have been reported for misconduct by their own lab members, colleagues or collaborators. For instance, Anil Potti was reported by a former medical student in his laboratory, Diederik Stapel by three of his graduate students, and Van Parijs by a team of graduate students and postdoctoral scientists in his group. A common thread among these whistleblowers is their reliance on anonymity. Instances of non-anonymous researchers reporting misconduct by their peers are rare, and they might as well be considered akin to sightings of unicorns. But why are non-anonymous reports so rare? What makes some individuals willing to risk their careers for the truth?
Academia is composed of micro-cultures, “tribes” surrounding certain fields, where to maintain membership on good terms you must please its tenured gatekeepers. A researcher who disrupts those relationships doesn't merely risk a single publication or grant, but potentially undermines their entire professional legitimacy within their tribe. On a spectrum ranging from staying silent in the face of fraud to publicly reporting research fraud, there are intermediate, quieter solutions which one might use to opt-out. These are negotiating an exit, transferring labs, or simply distancing themselves from the problematic research while maintaining transparency as far as one’s experiments are concerned. Consequently, many prioritize short-term tribal cohesion over long-term scientific integrity. As it will be explored later in this essay, reporting your supervisor will have, almost certainly, a huge downside to your career progression, and most possibly your personal life and mental health. These quieter solutions often involve significantly less risk. Therefore, the current climate in which academic research operates creates a maladapted culture where numerous incentives for unethical behaviour exist, both in terms of performing fraud and concealing it if detected. It is no wonder that this is fear-inducing.
Researchers who take action against fraudulent colleagues typically face immense downsides. Dr Nancy Olivieri, a whistleblower with skin in the game, mentions:
“Researchers who make the hard choice to speak up when problems arise can’t expect people to say, ‘Why, aren’t you just wonderful?’ Because that’s not what happens to whistleblowers.”
Examples of individuals who courageously chose to act honorably even when the downside is huge are rare and, arguably, not adequately celebrated. My hypothesis is the following: it would likely be easier to report colleagues guilty of deliberate misconduct if there were well-known examples of individuals who had done so publicly, shared their experiences, and been commended by the academic community for their actions. Those individuals would therefore be akin to micro-heroes in the academic margins, who chose to “take one for the team” to end a potentially much longer academic lineage based on fraud.
This is an essay about individual acts of courage and honor, performed openly. It was inspired by the undeservingly awful situations these individuals experienced after coming forward and Ruxandra Tesloianu’s essay on Intellectual courage as the scarcest resource.
I do not presume to preach about showing integrity or bravery when faced with difficult situations, nor to scold those who choose the “quiet“ solutions. One of the reasons I wrote this piece was my own need to articulate these ideas and follow my own advice. What I aim to do is highlight the stories of those who have spoken out publicly, demonstrated exceptional character, and taken a stand against deliberate research fraud in the face of very high possible downside. Although it is extremely difficult to meaningfully succeed on my own, I want to do my part in possibly giving them an upside that is at least slightly higher than the one they got, and more fitting as a counter to the severity of the outcomes of their actions. But most importantly, I want to make it easier for others to speak out by spreading this information to people in my milieu, even if the impact is very marginal. By sharing these examples, I hope to encourage myself and others to foster recognition for those who uphold integrity, even in situations where most would not. There is power in narratives that spark hope, resilience, and courage, which in the past I have found as impactful as domain-specific scientific content. I’m sure that there are others out there who resonate with me and appreciate pieces with a solid focus on fortifying morale through writing essays and sharing stories.
The real-world consequences of exposing research fraud are painfully illustrated by the cases of Elizabeth Goodwin and her graduate students, Friedhelm Herrmann and Marion Brach’s postdoctoral fellow Eberhard Hildt, Nancy Olivieri and Carl Elliott.
Stories of honor
The story of Eberhard Hildt, now a Professor at the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut in Germany, provides valuable insight into the collateral damage inflicted to those affiliated with fraudulent seniors. Data manipulation was discovered across multiple papers by Friedhelm Herrmann and Marion Brach, investigators at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin. By June 2000, an independent task force concluded that at least 94 papers had been manipulated or highly likely falsified, making this one of the most significant scientific fraud cases in German history. Hildt, then a postdoctoral fellow in their lab and the one to report his mentors for fraud, recalls:
"The consequence for me was that I had to leave the lab."
The ripple effects extended beyond Hildt. Students in the lab faced uncertainty about completing their studies without funding following the termination of their supervisors. Only through university intervention, which had no existing protective policy in place and had to improvise a response to this specific occurrence, were they able to salvage their graduate studies. This is a small mercy in a system that often leaves not only whistleblowers, but also innocent bystanders to bear the consequences of others' misconduct. Although this case led to policies to support students and postdocs in labs shut down due to fraud, it did not prompt a system-wide adoption, as it will be demonstrated by the case of former genetics professor Elizabeth Goodwin at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In 2010, Elizabeth Goodwin pleaded guilty in court to falsifying data in a grant application. She was sentenced to two years of probation and directed that she pay a $500 fine and restitution as follows: $50,000 to the US Department of Health and Human Services and $50,000 to the University of Wisconsin. In addition to these sentences, Goodwin agreed to be voluntarily excluded for three years from any involvement in federal government research.
The real focus of the story is the courage of her six PhD students who after months’ worth of deliberation and discussions among themselves, decided to expose Goodwin’s actions. Those were Mary Allen, Chantal Ly, Sarah LaMartina, Garett Padilla, Amy Hubert and Jacque Baca. Despite having responded to the discovery of fraud with professionalism, they were not rewarded for it. After coming forward, they dealt with significant resistance from faculty members who defaulted to siding with Goodwin, creating a hostile environment that compounded the mental and professional toll of their courageous act. According to Ly, rumours that Goodwin had “to fake something because her students couldn’t produce enough data” had reached the six students. The University of Wisconsin-Madison fashioned a new policy in response to the unprecedented need to pay the stipends of these graduate students following the shutdown of their lab due to fraud conducted by their supervisor. Clearly, the case of Hildt in Germany did not create enough impact to prompt other institutions to adopt such policies.
LaMartina, Padilla and Ly abandoned their PhDs entirely after having spent 3, 6 and 7 years studying under Goodwin, respectively. Mary Allen restarted her doctoral journey at the University of Colorado from scratch, while only two of the original group remained at the University of Wisconsin to complete their PhDs under different supervisors. The professional toll was severe, with over two decades of collective time lost among the six students.
This narrative is not just about individual courage, but about the deeply entrenched cultural mechanisms that discourage whistleblowing and do not reward the honest. As Allen put it in her retrospective piece written 10 years after the event:
“Unfortunately, the repercussions do not end when the case ends. My graduate school career took several extra years. My husband and I waited to have a child until after I graduated, much later than we had originally planned. […] Moreover, I have a four-year gap in my publications list, admittedly explainable, but I still worry about the effect that has on my future job applications. Most importantly, I forever carry the label of a whistleblower. There are both positive and negative connotations to that label. For example, during the hiring process, a more senior faculty member felt compelled to tell my current boss about my history as a whistleblower. The implication was that a whistleblower is akin to a tattletale and could cause trouble in a lab. […] But even given the repercussions, I would make the same choice today that I made then.”
Yet, there is strong evidence of resilience. Mary Allen ultimately became a Research Associate Professor at the University of Colorado, continuing her research in transcription and Down Syndrome, among other topics. Amy Hubert, who completed her PhD in the lab of Philip Anderson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is now an Associate Professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville where she studies regeneration in the planarian flatworm.
Although the focus so far has been junior researchers in academia, more senior-level scientists in the pharmaceutical industry are also no stranger to misconduct. The case of Nancy Olivieri is particularly interesting, and was recently covered by a career feature in Nature. Olivieri published research containing evidence that the drug deferiprone increased liver and heart injury in the participants of a clinical trial co-sponsored by Apotex, despite having been threatened by them with a lawsuit. She faced severe repercussions including a total of 20 lawsuits, hate mail, false accusations of data fabrication and sexual misconduct, and several job losses.
Judging by the support Olivieri has given to others finding themselves in situations where the truth was obscured and patients’ lives were on the line, she seems remarkably courageous, unusually so even within the pool of whistleblowers. Carl Elliott from the University of Minnesota received help from Olivieri during his report of an anti-psychotic clinical trial occurring at his institution, which resulted in the suicide of a patient. He said the following about her, as reported in his interview with Nature:
“It’s unusual for past whistle-blowers to jump into other whistle-blowing cases: most people retreat from public view once the experience has ruined their careers. Nancy is kind of the opposite, she’s really curious about other people’s troubles and eager to step in and help.”
The story of Elliott’s experience as a whistleblower is told in his book The Occasional Human Sacrifice, where he also points out that bureaucracy is largely to blame for creating a closed workplace system that lets employees ignore their deeper moral beliefs while at work.
Although over two decades have passed since Olivieri published her paper exposing the adverse effects of deferiprone, the legal battles are still ongoing. Olivieri highlights how important the solidarity that she received from other researchers concerned with the hostility that she was receiving was for her. She is skeptical of routes for the internal reporting of misconduct within institutions and advises young scientists to “make sure you’re not alone” and “find your allies early.“
After I discovered the stories of those scientists, I felt compelled to share them. These researchers faced significant downsides in reporting their colleagues for research fraud. In the ‘90s and early ‘00s, there was no Elisabeth Bik posting image forensics on twitter and no culture as openly supportive of public scrutiny of research papers as today’s culture (largely thanks to PubPeer). Back then, the internet was still in its infancy and the likelihood of finding a group of people online for support was significantly lower. Scientists were often left to depend solely on the courage of colleagues nearby to support their cause, which is an extremely, extremely difficult thing to find.
Yet, even today, despite following mostly science-related accounts, I have not seen any of the cases above discussed on twitter or other social media platforms which I frequent. Furthermore, the extended amount of time needed to compile all of these stories is, in my opinion, representative of the lack of recognition they’ve received from the broader research community, compared to what I believe they deserve. If we want to foster a culture of high integrity in science, it is important to loudly celebrate individuals like them. I think Allen, Hubert, Baca, LaMartina, Ly, Padilla, Hildt, Olivieri and Elliott have earned the right to be recognized as a small pioneering cohort of heroes within the research community. Heroes, because they made sacrifices for others in their community, enduring longer graduate studies or dropping out completely to uphold the truth. They made sure that the work of other scientists wouldn’t be based on fraudulent foundations. They resisted unethical norms and culture and persisted in the face of the mental anguish that this situation brought upon them.
Our choice of heroes reflects our collective values. By recognising and amplifying their stories, we highlight fortitude as a virtue we wish to uphold in our community, and we make it easier for whistleblowers to follow Olivieri’s advice about “making sure that you’re not alone”. Making our community more aware of these stories seems like the simplest of all useful actions, especially given the importance of finding allies and a supportive community for those who want to speak out against fraud. Amplifying their stories could assist them with finding this community.
How do we bring about such a change through concrete, actionable steps?
I’m afraid I don’t have a definite answer that addresses the entirety of this issue, and I don’t think anyone does. It seems that change must come from multiple directions until this collective effort ultimately tips the balance toward a better culture.
Many intelligent and courageous individuals are doing tremendous work to tip this balance by running organisations such as Arc Institute, focused research organisations, New Science, ARIA, Astera Institute. These are incredible ventures that aim to change how science is performed or funded. Some of the academic structures that they challenge are contributors to the emergence of fraud. While these efforts are extremely valuable, they should be complemented by acts that make it psychologically easier for researchers to come forward with the truth, instead of hoping that they will make the conscious decision to be more courageous and honorable.
I believe we need to actively encourage greater recognition of heroic acts within the research community. This is especially important for those emerging in response to situations downstream of current systemic and cultural shortcomings.
I do not think simply sharing some news articles on twitter will be enough on its own to create meaningful change. However, it seems that the most basic action to perform in the meanwhile of trying to come up with better solutions is to articulate my reasoning for sharing such stories. Hopefully, this will convince others to do the same. As Olivieri herself mentioned, people considering coming forward should make sure that they’re not alone. It seems that they would find it easier to gather support if their stories were talked about more widely. Moreover, people might feel more confident coming forward in the first place if they found a growing community that praises those who have come forward in the past.
Hildt, as well as Allen, Ly, LaMartina, Padilla, Baca, Hubert, Olivieri, and Elliott probably did not set out to look for instances of fraud to report with the aim of creating a sweeping cultural transformation. Instead, they seem to have responded to instances of misconduct with the integrity they possessed at the time. Yet, the cumulative effect of such individual ethical choices can create ripple effects far beyond their original context. Each ethical stand incrementally lowers the psychological barrier for future whistleblowers, gradually reducing the social cost of speaking out. This creates a cascading effect of moral courage that makes subsequent acts of integrity slightly less risky. By amplifying the stories of these individuals, we can further reduce this cost and make it easier for them to find a supportive community. Such small steps can promote micro-foundational changes in the right direction within research institutions. In the margins.
Whistleblowers who bring cases of deliberate misconduct to light are pro-social on net. While they may sever ties with their immediate academic circle, they benefit the wider research community by protecting it from potential harm. In short, they value fidelity over loyalty. They enable fairer distribution of research funds by removing labs that engage in fraud out of the market, ensure that the painful situation they endured is not passed on to someone else in the future, lead to the retraction of papers that others could waste resources on replicating, and can ultimately save patients. Very importantly, they prevent future misconduct by creating deterrence.
Courageous and honorable individuals fuel their community with vitality. Amplifying their stories is good for culture. Recognizing those who speak out and sharing their stories is a crucial first step, which will lower the psychological barrier and reduce the social cost of doing the unpopular, but honorable thing.
I think financial awards are underrated here. $50k academic heroism reward would probably do a lot to publicise it.