Sorbonne-Paris-Nord scientific malpractice case resurfaces

I amHis dream continues at Sorbonne-Paris-Nord University and CNRS, haunted by a scientific misconduct scandal that lasted more than two years. Several recent developments confirm the difficult management of these cases.

Little reminders. On February 9, 2021, Raphaël Lévy, a professor at the university, and CNRS’ scientific integrity references were captured in almost thirty articles by Jolanda Spatavecchia, CNRS’s research director in nanoscience. A trial is expected to conclude in spring 2022. A dozen articles are corrected by editors, but one newspaper prefers to retract rather than edit an incriminating article against the editors’ opinion. On December 16, 2022, two weeks after the disciplinary commission, the researcher was suspended from his duties for one month. The end of the story?

Not really. On the one hand, the quality of his work is still questionable. On the other hand, the professor responsible for the outbreak of the affair has to defend himself from many accusations.

In terms of research quality, Two news Retreats, again against the editors’ wishes, was pronounced by a journal, and the journals have yet to rule on the requested revisions. Also, in October 2022, Jolanda Spatavecchia Publish a similar articleWith very few exceptions, The first one to be withdrawn (fixing the culprit and adding a co-author), which is already ethically dubious. But it’s a so-called “predatory” journal, that is, one that looks or tastes like a scientific journal but isn’t. The article was accepted in three weeks. A member of the magazine’s editorial board said the world Who runs this magazine is not known and has not been contacted yet. A Comment of May 16, 2022As the Scientific Council of the CNRS considers “Harmful” These newspapers.

Above all, a large number of new reports have been received through the CNRS Scientific Integrity Reference (RIS). On February 12, it is a compilation that raises potential issues with twenty-three articles, six of which have already been fixed. On March 28, Dorothy Bishop RIS was officially notified of a dozen links to PubPeer, a site for post-publication review of articles, and to highlight potential irregularities in the researcher’s articles. This English integrity expert, along with sixteen international experts, has written on the subject, An open letter to the boss of the CNRSOn February 22, I regret the attitude of the organization “Slow, opaque and inadequate”. Antoine Petit returns to RIS, so there’s plenty to do.

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