This is yet another nanotechnology story, this time with a whistleblowers’ account. The authors are Czech mathematicians Tomas Furst and Michal Botur from the Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, and they present below evidence of systematic research misconduct, nepotism and retaliation in their university.
The main character here is the materials scientist Radek Zboril, nanotechnology professor at the Palacký University, member of the Czech Learned Society and Czech Technology Agency board. Zboril boasts “more than 564 papers with the total impact factor over 3 588” (highlight his). He also runs the international conference NanoCon, and I wonder if Radek gets the pun here. Because one of these 564 papers, Hermanek et al 2007, published in the elite chemistry journal JACS, has been retracted after the university’s ethics commission found Zboril and his first PhD student Martin Hermanek guilty of research misconduct.
But the December 2019 retraction notice says merely:
“The authors retract this Article due to inaccuracies in Figure 2. The original Article was published on August 11, 2007, and retracted on December 17, 2019.”
The whistleblowers found more evidence of data fabrication in other Zboril papers, primarily in the Tucek et al Nature Communications 2016 study. The first author Jiri Tucek is coauthor on all other suspicious publications from Zboril’s lab, which earned him a faculty position at the Experimental Physics department. A professorship which was somehow passed on to the new science faculty Dean Martin Kubala, after Tucek suffered hospitalisation and resigned in the wake of the misconduct investigation.
Zboril however still enjoys unconditional support at the very top. The rector of the Palacky University, Jaroslav Miller, has slammed his fist and put his foot down to disagree with the ethics commission’s misconduct ruling. He was quoted:
“According to Miller, it was not possible to identify who specifically modified the data. He considers the conclusion that Zbořil caused the adjustment to be unproven. “It would require a deeper expert investigation into the whole matter,” he said.“
Zboril himself turned around and accused the whistleblowers of research fraud:
“The conclusions of the ethics committee are based on the impressions, feelings and testimonies of former UP employees, with whom I had serious disputes over the ethics of their scientific work.”
Rector Miller then viciously retaliated against the whistleblowers and the investigators, in a manner highly reminiscent of his counterpart at the University of Ferrara, the key difference here being is that the Italian rector Giorgio Zauli was himself investigated by his university’s ethics commission for research fraud.
The original whistleblower was Zboril’s PhD student Cenek Gregor, who rang the alarm already in 2012. For that, Gregor was denied graduation twice. His PhD thesis was submitted in January 2012, its defence recorded as having happened in May 2012. The dissertation is available online, with full-text pdf, which proves Palacky University stands behind the research presented there. But while approving Gregor’s thesis, they still denied him a graduation, which might be a form of academic misconduct by the university leadership. Without a hope to graduate, Gregor dropped out and went to work in the private sector. He was quoted in a 2019 newspaper report:
“When I didn’t get a big doctorate, the way to continuing my work in the academic sphere, which I enjoyed, was closed to me. I doubt I could build on it“.
The new career did not last: that Czech pharma company Farmak openly took Zboril’s side, sued a former faculty dean, and sacked Gregor. Zboril himself seems to have emerged unscathed from an affair which made nation-wide Czech news. His friends recently put him on papers in Angewandte Chemie and Nature Nanotechnology, and of course it is Professor Zboril who is now at the forefront, fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Only thanks to him will mass-testing for the coronavirus be possible in Europe:
“The development of magnetic nanoparticles for test kits began in Olomouc at the time of the outbreak of the pandemic. At that time, there was basically a worldwide shortage of tests. Now, scientists are ready to produce material for up to a million tests a day, if needed. “We were approached with a request for the development of magnetic particles that would provide a relatively important part of the testing process, which is the isolation of viral RNA,” Radek Zbořil, head of the research team at the UP Olomouc Regional Center for Advanced Technologies and Materials, told CNN Prima NEWS.“
If you are still in doubt, this is what Zboril wrote about himself, highlights his:
“In 2011, he was awarded by the Czech Republic’s Minister of Education for extraordinary results achieved in the field of research, experimental development and innovations.”
Well, Zboril’s nano-con results were even more extraordinary that the Czech minister could ever dare to hope. This is what this guest post is about.
A massive scientific misconduct affair in the Czech Republic
By Tomas Fürst and Michal Botur
In the past year, we have been dealing with a scientific misconduct case at the Palacky University in the Czech Republic. The case may develop into the largest affair of its kind in our country since the fall of the communist regime in 1989. While the Faculty of Science Dean Martin Kubala, and faculty bodies face the unpleasant situation openly and attempt to solve the issue transparently on the level of the high standards common in the western world, incredibly, the Rector’s office is on board with the wrong-doers and we are struggling to push investigation forward. The story has already many vicissitudes, so let us try to outline the main facts:
Fake nanocrystallinity
The oldest documented case of scientific fraud concerned the novel effect of nanocrystallinity published in a 2007 JACS paper, which has been already retracted.
The true reason for the retraction is, however, very different from the one stated on the journal website. The alleged “inaccuracies in Figure 2” is a euphemism for a deliberate falsification of experimental data supporting the catching story of nanocrystallinity. The original graph contained additional peaks in the XRD spectrum, which indicated presence of precursor residuals. They were erased in order to eliminate alternative, quite trivial, explanation of the observed effects.
There was an investigation regarding this issue and the Ethics Committee of the University gave a clear opinion that the first author Martin Hermanek, and corresponding author Prof. Radek Zboril, violated the Code of Ethics of the University. A detailed description in Czech can be found here, archived copy here (English version is here, archived copy is here).
However, it is neither beginning nor the end of the story. After the release of the Ethics Committee decision, the Rector grossly deformed its conclusions in favour of Mr. Zboril in a press release.
Further, the chair of the Ethics Committee – prof. Karel Indrak – was exposed to heavy personal attacks by Mr. Zboril and his colleagues, and eventually, he resigned quoting a lack of support from the Rector.
This paralyzed the Ethics Committee for a couple of months. The Dean was also called by the Rector to step down, which he declined. Since then, the Dean has been a target of permanent attacks from Mr. Zboril and his colleagues, supported by the Rector’s office.
The first acts of this case attracted considerable attention in the Czech academia. The discrepancies in the JACS article were first noted already in 2013 (possibly even 2012) by Cenek Gregor, a doctoral student of Mr. Zboril. When continuing the work on the topic, he identified the residuals of the precursor in the sample, and his additional experiments revealed that they can indeed explain all the observed effects. Moreover, he also found the original graph. In other words, the whole story about the effects of nanocrystallinity was very likely fake. After that, Mr. Zboril and his powerful colleagues made Mr. Gregor twice fail his Ph.D. thesis defence, and thus, kicked him out of the University.
Magic denoiser
A subsequent case of the same corresponding author Zboril concerns the article of Tucek et al Nature Communications 2016. Again, it is a catching story about a novel nanomaterial, which is claimed to be air-stable. However, the only experiment demonstrating the stability could be found in the supplement. The figure of interest is Figure 6 with three panels (at t=0 and two other time points) demonstrating the stability of the sample. A closer inspection reveals, however, that the presented Moessbauer spectra were not similar, but completely identical.
Coauthor Kateřina Holá on PubPeer: “Unfortunately, the Mössbauer spectrum of the fresh sample (panel a) was inserted instead of the Mössbauer spectra of the samples stored in air (panel b) and stored in the physiological solution (panel c). Thus, three completely identical Mössbauer spectra appeared by mistake. None of the authors identified this error during the final checking and proofreading of the manuscript, most probably due to a significant similarity of the respective Mössbauer spectra (2% difference in the composition). The correct spectra, which do not affect any of the conclusions of the work, have been sent together with the correction.“
After the Dean established a committee to investigate the case, the authors explained the issue to be a simple technical mistake and quickly sent a corrigendum to the journal, which got published soon.
However, an inspection of the novel graphs revealed that even they are highly suspicious due to incredibly low noise, far below what should be possible according to fundamental laws of physics! Later, a few more figures (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3) in the paper became suspicious as well for the same reason. The authors have ignored all requests to provide the original raw data although the paper contains an explicit statement that “[t]he data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request”. Also, they are unable to explain the “magic” procedure that yields the published spectra with such a low noise level. The investigation in this matter by Ethics committee is still proceeding.
“The suspicion has increased when it turned out that the same data point distribution occurs also in Fig. 2a of the main text of the paper. In this case, however, the transmittance drop is displayed as about 0.7% (from 100% to about 99.3%) in contrast to what is in the figures supplied by R. Zboril and by J. Tucek where the transmittance drop is below 0.2% only“
The attached document contains an overview of the case and detailed arguments why the incriminated figures were probably not produced by a legitimate scientific procedure. For example:
“The authors were asked for the original raw data of the Moessbauer experiments. Dr. Tucek gave the committee the printed spectra and promised to deliver the original files with raw measured data gathered directly from the spectrometer. But in the following days he stopped communication referring to health issues. He has not provided any data and ultimately left academia.
The corresponding author R. Zboril claimed that all what is left from the original data relatedto Fig. 6 of the Supplementary Information are figures with the so called “filtered data”. […] Concerns were raised about the unavailability of the original unfiltered data. Although data of the Moessbauer experiments are routinely stored, data related to this experiment could not be found. The corresponding author did not communicate in discussions about the data, but people from the lab admitted that some data might have been erased from the database by accident.“
The journal was informed, released an Editor’s Note informing about the ongoing investigation:
“Editor’s Note: The Journal has been alerted to concerns regarding the reliability of data presented in this manuscript. The journal will work with the authors and their respective institutions to investigate the matter. Appropriate editorial action will be taken once this matter is resolved.”
The retraction of the Tucek et al 2019 article is – one may hope – on its way.
“the amplitude of the fit curve is the same within the precision of data reading from the figures. On the other hand, the effect has dropped from 0.191% of J. Tucek to 0.180% of R. Zboril,i.e., relatively by about 6%. This is the same as if the data points were shifted manually by 2,648,800 counts upwards rather than what would correspond to additional measurements which would not
change the magnitude of the effect.“
Since then, seven other papers have emerged that contain equally suspicious figures of Moessbauer spectra with unrealistically low noise (see below). Again, the authors ignore all requests to provide raw data (we invite readers to try their own inquiry). Mr. Zboril claims to have sent some data to the Rector’s office and, incredibly, the Rector’s office produced a lengthy legal document (17 pages) to explain why the University will not hand the data over to anyone – an academic chutzpah par excellence.
Enhancement of photoactivity
Recently, another paper with the same corresponding author Zboril (and two others) has emerged, which contains a highly suspicious figure concerning photoelectrochemistry of a novel nanomaterial. The three curves in Figure 5d do not seem to show three sets of experimental data, but three copies of a single measurement deliberately rescaled to show the alleged effect. Again, this case is under investigation of the faculty bodies and the editorial office.
That makes 10 papers raising suspicion of severe scientific misconduct – some already proven, some under investigation, some obvious, some more sophisticated. Incredibly, Mr. Zboril as corresponding author of all the papers, never acknowledged any responsibility, and despite the evidence, he claims all the cases to be either fabricated or (when this position becomes untenable) perpetuated by one of the co-authors. More incredibly, the Rector’s office holds the same line. Even more incredibly, the Academic Senate of the University has several times postponed dealing with these ethical issues and, instead, established a research institute directly responsible to the Rector’s office, where the wrong-doers may hide from any investigation at the faculty. None of the Czech official authorities (the Ministry of Education, grant agencies, the Academy of Sciences, etc.) have shown any interest in the growing affair so far.
The Empire strikes back
We seem to be running out of options in this network of scientific misconduct cases, which threatens the existence of the University and integrity of Czech academic research. The situation is very demotivating for the majority of employees, and in particular, for students, who see a powerful professor get away with behaviour that would not be tolerated in their case. Even the academic self-government, represented by the Academic Senate of the University, has failed the community it should serve and turned a blind eye on the cases.
Moreover, several people involved in the investigation have been a target of persecution. Mr. Gregor, who first mentioned the fake graph in JACS, was kicked out of the dissertation defense twice. Thus, he never finished his PhD and left Academia without the Ph.D. title. After he had testified in the current investigation, he even lost his job at Farmak – a chemical company in Olomouc, which is directed by friends of the colleagues against whom he testified.
The chair of the Ethics Committee Prof. Indrak found himself under heavy personal attacks which included an accusation of autoplagiarism. Despite this accusation quickly turned out to be unjust, he eventually resigned, referring to the lack of support from the Rector.
One of the authors of this text (TF) was interrogated by the criminal police for an alleged ‘libel’ (the case did not proceed to court) and the Ethics Committee of the University opined that he breached the code of ethics (more here, in Czech) by publishing information on the misconduct of his colleagues. He resigned from the Academic senate of the faculty but won this position back in the last election.
Prof. Tomas Opatrny – the author of the computation that shows the impossibility of a legitimate origin of the figures in Nat. Comm. – was under investigation, too. Prof. Zboril and his seventeen friends filed a long complaint against Prof. Opatrny which contained allegations of bossing, stalking, and discrimination! The rector, predictably, passed the complaint to the Ethics Committee, which, however, dismissed the case, found no breach of the Code of Ethics by Mr. Opatrny, and even described some of the allegations as “absurd” (more here, in Czech).
The Dean, who allowed investigating the misconduct affairs, has been under permanent attacks. He was interrogated by the criminal police together with TF, he was a subject of a thorough control of the Labour Inspectorate regarding bossing, mobbing and discrimination (all with a negative result). In one of the most bizarre attacks, his private conversation in coffee-bar was secretly recorded and the record was provided to Mr. Zboril. The transcript of out-of-context picked short excerpts (altogether less than 2 min out of 90-min record) served as a basis for the request of Mr. Zboril’s friends to interrogate the Dean for inappropriate behaviour. The Rector even summoned the Academic Senate on an exceptional meeting to deal with this secret record! This absurd drama at the Academic Senate had no tangible result but it illustrates nicely how far the camp of Mr. Zboril – backed by the Rector’s office – is willing to go to get rid of the Dean.
List of articles with suspicious figures of Moessbauer spectra
- M Hermanek, R Zboril, I Medrik, J Pechousek, C Gregor “Catalytic Efficiency of Iron(III) Oxides in Decomposition of Hydrogen Peroxide: Competition between the Surface Area and Crystallinity of Nanoparticles” J. Am. Chem. Soc. (2007) doi: 10.1021/ja072918x. Retracted 17 Dec 2019.
- J Tuček, Z Sofer, D Bouša, M Pumera, K Holá, A Malá, K Poláková, M Havrdová, K Čépe, O Tomanec, R Zbořil “Air-stable superparamagnetic metal nanoparticles entrapped in graphene oxide matrix”. Nature Communications (2016). doi: 10.1038/ncomms12879 Corrected, expression of concern
- MB. Gawande, AK. Rathi, J Tucek, K Safarova, N Bundaleski, OM.N.D. Teodoro, L Kvitek, RS. Varma, R Zboril “Magnetic gold nanocatalyst (nanocat-Fe–Au): catalytic applications for the oxidative esterification and hydrogen transfer reactions” Green Chemistry (2014) doi: 10.1039/c4gc00774c
- R Prucek, J Tuček, J Kolařík, I Hušková, J Filip, RS. Varma, VK. Sharma, R Zbořil “Ferrate(VI)-prompted removal of metals in aqueous media: mechanistic delineation of enhanced efficiency via metal entrenchment in magnetic oxides” Environmental Science & Technology (2015) doi: 10.1021/es5048683
- Kralchevska RP, Prucek R, Kolařík J, Tuček J, Machala L, Filip J, Sharma VK, Zbořil R “Remarkable efficiency of phosphate removal: Ferrate(VI)-induced in situ sorption on core-shell nanoparticles.” Water Research (2016) DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2016.07.021
- TM. Lima, CGS. Lima, AK. Rathi, MB. Gawande, J Tucek, EA. Urquieta-González, R Zbořil , MW. Paixão, RS. Varma “Magnetic ZSM-5 zeolite: a selective catalyst for the valorization of furfuryl alcohol to γ-valerolactone, alkyl levulinates or levulinic acid” Green Chemistry (2016) doi: 10.1039/c6gc01296e
- VB. Gade, AK. Rathi, SB. Bhalekar, J Tucek, O Tomanec, RS. Varma, R Zboril, SN. Shelke, MB. Gawande “Iron-Oxide-Supported Ultrasmall ZnO Nanoparticles: Applications for Transesterification, Amidation, and O-Acylation Reactions” ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (2017) doi: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.6b03167
- J Tuček, R Prucek, J Kolařík, G Zoppellaro, M Petr, J Filip, VK. Sharma, R Zbořil “Zero-Valent Iron Nanoparticles Reduce Arsenites and Arsenates to As(0) Firmly Embedded in Core–Shell Superstructure: Challenging Strategy of Arsenic Treatment under Anoxic Conditions” ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (2017) doi: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.6b02698
- J Kolařík, R Prucek, J Tuček, J Filip, VK. Sharma, R Zbořil “Impact of inorganic ions and natural organic matter on arsenates removal by ferrate(VI): Understanding a complex effect of phosphates ions” Water Research (2018) doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2018.05.024
Donate!
If you are interested to support my work, you can leave here a small tip of $5. Or several of small tips, just increase the amount as you like (2x=€10; 5x=€25). Your generous patronage of my nanotechnology trolling will be most appreciated!
€5.00
For Better Science 
Pingback: Gli anticorpi di Fifi - Ocasapiens - Blog - Repubblica.it
Email forwarded to me from the Editor-in-Chief James Spivey:
This is the paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0920586118310848
LikeLike
There are no significant errors in the data, but simply a fabrication and scientific misconduct. The retraction notice should present true reason.
LikeLike
Fabrication of data is certainly a “significant error” (albeit moral, and probably legal, rather than merely careless). It is also, of course, scientific misconduct that ought to be career-ending (for the perpetrator[s], not the whistleblowers or unaffiliated Data Thugs!).
LikeLike
If you are judging anyone without an evidence or knowledge of all details, your behaivour is same like scientific misconduct. Do you have any evidence this is not true reason and that editors are lying to us? Or do you want to ruin innocent people lifes just for your belief?
So please, just prove the editors are lying. I’ll wait.
LikeLike
You are confusing acts and intentions, as well as areas of responsibility. The data are sufficiently erroneous to merit editorial retraction for the sake of the integrity of the journal and the literature in the field. The editors do not have sufficient evidence to determine how the errors arose or who was responsible, although they may have suspicions and they saw no need to involve the authors in the retraction. Finding fault is the responsibility of the authors’ host and funding institutions, as it is to take appropriate action in accordance with established rules.
LikeLike
Mesage from UP Olomouc Dean of Faculty of Science:
LikeLike
Petr: I am not judging anyone. The curves in the figure are obviously faked and scientific misconduct occured undoubtedly. There is no other plausible explanation.
I cannot fully agree that fabrication of data is a significant error. Error means that something occured during the experiment causing the data unreliable or wrong which fact was identified later. Fraud is not an error.
I am not confusing the intentions and acts. Simply, the data are fabricated and this should stand clearly as the cause of retraction.
LikeLike
Nature Communications paper was already reviewed by external experts in the Mossbauer spectroscopy (e.g. Zoltan Klenczar – https://www.upol.cz/fileadmin/userdata/UP/uredni-deska/nat-comm/Priloha_c.3_Klencsar-posudek.pdf) and external experimental remeasurement (by Mariola Kadziolka-Gawel https://www.upol.cz/fileadmin/userdata/UP/uredni-deska/nat-comm/Priloha_c.4_Kadziolka-posudek.pdf) as a result of investigation and the results of paper were confirmed.
Details here: https://www.upol.cz/univerzita/uredni-deska/dokumenty/nat-comm-2016/ (in Czech)
LikeLike
Pech: Did you read these reviews? They answer completely different question than whether NatComm spectra were manipulated or even completely software generated (i. e., faked).
LikeLike
The smoke screen
Over the past year, the team of Radek Zboril spent hundreds of hours spreading various stories regarding the missing data and the fabricated images. This strategy has worked quite well because nowadays, even at the home university, almost no one understands what really happened. Let us briefly recall the main line of this story:
At the meeting of the academic senate of the faculty (September 18, 2019), Jakub Navařík (a co-worker of Radek Zboril) presented (https://www.prf.upol.cz/…pdf) results of a new measurement of a sample. He claimed that a part of the original sample studied in the NatComm paper was found somewhere in RCPTM. Jakub Navarik stated that this new measurement proved the same ratio of components of the fitted spectrum as was reported in the original paper, thus showing even better stability of the material than claimed in the paper (years instead of 30 days).
Tomáš Opatrny obtained the dataset from Navarik, fitted it by the same set of curves Navarik claimed to have used (note-moesb4.pdf), and showed that Navarik’s results are plain wrong. In other words, Navarik’s alleged fit was either a mistake or a deliberate fake to confuse the academic senate.
Karel Berka (the husband of one of the co-autors of the NatComm paper) asked Zoltan Klencsár (a business partner of RCPTM) several questions regarding Moessbauer spectroscopy. The questions carefully avoided the issue of the figures in the original paper. Klencsár worked with Navarik’s measurement of the newly found sample (i.e. not with the raw data for the graphs published in NatComm). Klencsar produced a report (https://www.upol.cz/…pdf) which does not deal with questions regarding the original paper.
The Rector Jaroslav Miller organised a new measurement of the mysterious Navarik’s sample (https://www.upol.cz/…pdf). Thus, none tried to prepare a fresh sample according to the NatComm paper and reproduce the measurement of the stability. The results of this rector’s activity confirmed the correctness of Opatrny’s fit of Navarik’s data. Again, this had nothing to do with the question of whether the graphs in the NatComm paper are fake or not.
Radek Zbořil presented a statement https://www.zurnal.upol.cz/…pdf (February 2020). He argues that he was first asked for the original data on February 7, 2020. This is not true, several people asked for the data during summer 2019. He further claimed that Jiri Tucek – the corresponding author of the NatComm paper – left RCPTM and thus his team had problems to identify the correct datasets and that the denoising procedure (that no one has ever been able to explain) is under reconstruction. The statement points to some set of raw data (https://www.rcptm.com/…zip). Tomas Opatrny compared these raw data to the published graphs (Figure 1 here https://www.zurnal.upol.cz/…pdf, left column shows the raw data from RCPTM, right column the figures in NatComm).
Radek Zbořil presented some comments on the reconstruction of the filtration procedure – i.e. the way to produce figures in the right column from the data in the left column. The software allegedly used was not presented and the reconstruction of the figures in NatComm was not achieved.
Thus, Radek Zbořil organized a research to reconstruct the methods used in his own paper – and failed. The many points above illustrate the strategy of Radek Zboril, his co-workers, and the rector: Spread as much fake, irrelevant, and misleading information as possible and hope everyone will get lost in the smoke-screen. This strategy has worked remarkably well for almost two years.
LikeLike
Sorry folks, I have an impression that all this mathematical mumbo-jumbo proved only one thing, and that it is possible to simulate the Mossbauer spectra from the scratch. I see no evidence that Mr. Zboril falsified the data and I don’t even have a clue if he is technically able to do so.
Another impression of mine is that the above-mentioned mathematicians do they “best” to defame Mr. Zboril in front of the wider audience.
Frankly, I wish I never meet such kind of people in person.
LikeLike
Are you joking? Show us a math background of the presented filtration process, please.
LikeLike
Funny how you forgot to mention the Ethical comitee of Faculty od Science stated the experts does not see anything suspicious on presented data. Also the fact that one of you was already found to break Ethical rules. On the other hand one may understand it could break your carefuly built shocking story guys. So smoke screen you say?
LikeLike
Excelent reproducible science at Palacky University in Olomouc, the experts does not see anything suspicious on presented data, it is a kind of magic:
The above examples are primarily intended to demonstrate the existence of source data and the ability of filtering tools to suppress noise. The final form of the spectrum (signal-to-noise ratio) is directly dependent on the combination and degree of use of individual algorithms, or the repetition of individual steps. The success of these processes is strongly dependent on their user experience and knowledge of the capabilities of the relevant software tools.
https://www.zurnal.upol.cz/fileadmin/formuploads/data_a_reprodukce_procedur_-_natcomm.pdf
LikeLike
Dear Petr, I did not forget to mention anything relevant. Graphs presented in the paper are not alright. The system of Ethical comitees working on our University did not finsh the case yet. The “partial results” did not state that datas are alright, logically, because autors haven’t raw data. If you have more information, publish them, please.
LikeLike
Stories like this (and in other articles at often even worse scale) make me wonder about whether actual police should be more involved investigating scientific fraud. It is not just scientific fraud, it’s a fraud as such, period. It’s not like biomedical research is exactly cheap, and I fail to see how it’s ok that paper retractions are pretty much the worst that can happen to the researchers (of course they can get sacked – unless they are famous enough – but that does not help recovering the taxpayers’ money).
The fact that some people seem happy to routinely throw accusations of unethical behaviour, bossing etc. just to throw a smokescreen isn’t really helping either.
I also wish journals kept a better eye on whether “data available on request” is complied with – because it often isn’t.
LikeLike
I agree. Fraudsters are often hosted by institutions that make a point of looking the other way as long as resources (e.g. grant funding) and positive publicity keep coming their way. There also appear to be corrupt networks of “researchers” who give each other a helping hand to further the support of subfields that seem to be mostly fake – I’m looking at you, green nanotech, microparticles and miRNA researchers – but are populated by hucksters who play up their potential make us all millionaires who will live forever disease-free. PI’s can be flamboyantly canned for being bullies and ass-grabbers, but the fakers are allowed to slink out the back door (e.g. Anversa) and set up shop again without a peep, when they ought to do time for fraud or at least pay the money back with hefty interest. Public support is a negative-sum game (owing to deficits), so every faker takes at least double the amount they get away from someone who might have done something useful. And of course they take a job as well.
LikeLike
Jiri Tucek, who was actually responsible for “magic denoising procedure” (i. e., software generation of Mossbauer spectra plus added software generated noise) didn’t left academia, but reappeared in nearby Pardubice University. He is, however, keeping the omerta of Zboril and Miller mafia.
LikeLike
Vox Populi wrote at
http://jinachemie.blogspot.com/2020/06/proc-jdou-mladi-chemici-delat-prumernou.html?commentPage=2
at 0:07 (James Bond time):
Cenek Gregor has been victimized because of telling the truth.
The Rector (university president in West) is unable to solve this ethical problem.
The Dean has still been doing his best to solve the bitter problem (created by the Rector and his co-conspirators).
The nasty story goes on (and support from Leonid and others is appreciated) —
LikeLike
Zbořil has recently been forced to retire from the Czech Learned Society.
His two key culprits – Hobza and Otyepka – have nearly missed to follow the suit, so far.
And another big shame is developing at the Czech Academy:http://jinachemie.blogspot.com/2020/10/oko-za-oko-aneb-zborilace-akademie-ved.html
It is so nasty story that a report in English is likely to appear, too.
LikeLike
Update: After JACS, the second paper (the one with fake Moessbauer spectra) of fraudster Zboril is retracted.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19968-3
LikeLike
Update: Palacky University rector, supporting fraudster Zboril et al. announced that he is stepping down by late April.
LikeLike
Email forwarded to me from the Editor-in-Chief James Spivey:
“The following retraction will be published by Catalysis Today:
“The following paper is retracted by the Editors as a result of significant errors in datasets.
Hana Kmentová, Devaki Nandan, Štěpán Kment, Alberto Naldoni, ManojB.Gawande, Zdeněk Hubička,Radek Zbořil. Catal.Today 328 (2019) 111-117.”
This is the paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0920586118310848
The fake paper by Zboril et al. is retracted, but the explanation is different – more euphemistic. It is difficult to understand, why the editors are so supporting with respect to fraudsters.
LikeLike
Pingback: Whitewashed by ACS and Elsevier, Zboril sues Olomouc Dean for “bullying” – For Better Science
After Zbořil, his two comrades in their common dirty business – Hobza and Otyepka – have also been forced to retire from the Czech Learned Society. However, they are continuing to spread mess across Olomouc and now also Ostrava university. Their sleazy game is not over yet.
LikeLike
Pingback: Moravian Rhapsody – For Better Science
Endless is story of Zboril et al.’s frauds:https://pubpeer.com/publications/0C2D2DD982847B4A69CBF79C2029FD
LikeLike