NEWS FEATURE

TOLERANCEZERO

BY DAVID CYRANOSKI

ang Wei has an easy smile and a care- them to the national calligraphy centre. “Most free, even distracted, air — but he signatures were identical to He’s own,” says takes such a solemn approach to life Yang. “Even I could tell that.” that his wife sometimes tells him to In March 2009, the ZJU fired He, terminated OLIVER MUNDAY relax.Y “I take everything­ seriously,” he says. the contract of Wu Limao, a co-author on sev- The former materials scientist certainly took eral of He’s papers and the laboratory head in it seriously when, two years after he became Li’s absence, and took away Li’s dean-ship and president of (ZJU) in graduate students. , , he faced a case of scientific Yang didn’t stop there: he launched a cam- misconduct that became a turning point for paign to make the ZJU more responsive to his presidency. In early October 2008, the edi- misconduct. With an energetic companion tor of the International Journal of Cardiology named Yuehong (Helen) Zhang cracking down discovered that figures in a manuscript by He on the university’s journals (see ‘Policing the Haibo, a scientist researching traditional Chi- plagiarists’), and assistance from a group of nese medicine who had been hired by the ZJU university administrators who share his deter- only months before, were suspiciously similar mination and commitment to a zero-tolerance to those in an article that He had published policy for misconduct, Yang hopes to make the elsewhere. Confronted, He quickly owned up, ZJU into a role model that can help to clean up submitting a 12-page confession to Yang on China’s reputation for rife scientific miscon- 26 October. duct. That reputation, exacerbated in the past But the case, which eventually led to the A UNIVERSITY five years by a string of high-profile cases (see retraction of eight papers, spiralled into an Nature 441, 392–393; 2006), has made observ- international media catastrophe for the ZJU, ers and journal editors increasingly sceptical of one of China’s oldest and largest universities, CRACKS DOWN the ability of Chinese research institutions to as well as one of the most successful in pub- ensure trustworthy science. lishing science. Articles attacked the laxity of a Yang, who now tours the country giving system that gave leadership roles to the likes of ON MISCONDUCT lectures on scientific integrity, has established Li Lianda, dean of the department of pharma- a reputation as the most evangelical of the ceutical sciences and He’s supervisor, who was IN CHINA. reformers. His collaborators are impressed. largely absent from the lab and unfamiliar with “He is committed to cleaning things up at the work, but was last author on some of He’s cases in China’s recent history, Yang knew he Zhejiang,” says Mark Frankel, director of the papers. “There was plagiarism, fabrication and had to act quickly. He personally wrote to all Scientific Freedom, Responsibility and Law falsification. It was a showcase of every kind of the editors of the journals involved. They sup- Program at the American Association for the problem,” says Yang. plied copies of copyright-transfer forms with Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washing- Facing one of the best-publicized misconduct all the co-authors’ signatures, and Yang sent ton DC, who is working with Yang to improve

134 | NATURE | VOL 481 | 12 JANUARY 2012 © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved FEATURE NEWS research ethics. Frankel says that efforts such as Yang’s are driving change. “What is most impressive is how open and willing the peo- ple with whom I work in China are to admit that a serious problem exists, and that they are QILAI SHEN/PANOS committed to turning things around for the younger generation of scientists,” he says. THE SCALE OF THE PROBLEM There are no comprehensive statistics on the extent of research misconduct in China — and few ministries, agencies or universities make cases public. Surveys and anecdotal evidence, however, reveal a deep-rooted problem, and suggest that students are learning unethi- cal behaviour alongside their science. In an unpublished 2008 survey of 1,641 students at 10 universities, Cao Nanyan, a research-integ- rity specialist at Tsinghua University in , found that more than 20% of students admitted to changing data that didn’t match their expec- tations. Some 60% of PhD students said that they sometimes witnessed misconduct, yet only 5% would report it — and Cao found evidence that the students’ tolerance of misconduct increased the longer they stayed in education. “It suggests that the more entangled you are in the system, the less able or motivated you are to pursue good practices,” says Daniele Fanelli, a social scientist at the University of Edinburgh, Yang Wei wants to reform attitudes towards research ethics at Zhejiang University and across the country. UK, who has studied the frequency of scientific misconduct. Fanelli says that Cao’s figures are enforcement is problematic, says Mu-ming do this. I have to do this,” he says. “clearly worrying, because they would suggest Poo, director of the Institute of Neuroscience in In January 2009, on the basis of lessons much higher rates of misconduct, and lower Shanghai. Most Chinese funding organizations learned in the He case, Yang created a research- rates of reporting, compared to what is usually do not, for example, have permanent offices to integrity committee and an investigation task reported in surveys in Western countries”. deal with misconduct in a systematic and trans- force at the ZJU. That March, at a conference to Cao and other experts on misconduct parent fashion, as the Office of Research Integ- discuss the He situation, the Chinese minister point to specific contributing factors. China’s rity at the US Department of Health and Human of education called for a zero-tolerance policy research system has developed very rapidly, and Services attempts to do. “Very few people in the towards misconduct — and Yang signed up. universities are scrambling to train the influx funding agency or in the scientific community He issued a series of codes to guide behaviour of students, scientists and administrators. “As a large, newly developed system of research, China does not have the control of its research “IT IS DIFFICULT TO HAVE INTEGRITY IN RESEARCH IF INTEGRITY IN programmes that is found in the West,” says Nicholas Steneck, who studies research integ- OTHER ASPECTS OF LIFE IS QUESTIONABLE.” rity at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Some researchers are simply oblivious to the are willing to be the ‘bad guy’ and enforce the on authorship, citations and submission pro- rules, says Zhong Haining, a neuroscientist regulations,” says Poo. He points to an investi- cedures, including one that forbids electronic who trained at Tsinghua University and is now gation into what he considered a clear-cut case submissions of papers by a non-corresponding starting a lab at Oregon Health and Science of misconduct. A researcher was dismissed, but author. This addressed one of the key problems University in Portland. “The official guideline soon found a job elsewhere and continued to get in the He case, in which He and some gradu- for scientific misconduct may (or may not) large grants. “There’s essentially no punishment ate students had submitted papers from an exist, but it’s not very well publicized, at least for scientific misconduct,” says Poo. “The toler- account under the name of the corresponding not emphasized so much in training,” he says. ance and appeasement within the community author, Wu. Yang replaced most of the ZJU’s Steneck adds that these issues may be rooted — that really worries me.” adjunct deans with full-time executive deans in a broader lack of honesty in governance, and in an attempt to avoid the problems created that this makes it tough to build a culture of TAKING ACTION by Li’s absentee leadership. And he introduced honest research. “It is difficult to have integrity Yang had encountered misconduct before he new investigative procedures and spelled out in research if integrity in other aspects of life is became president of the ZJU — as a reviewer of disciplinary actions. questionable,” he says. manuscripts in fracture mechanics, and in roles All this helped Yang to prepare for a second The government, uni- such as director-general of the academic degrees big case, in mid-2010. The editor-in-chief of a NATURE.COM versities and research committee of the State Council of China, a post journal published by Springer contacted Yang to Ten experts give their institutions have intro- that he held from 2004 to 2006. But when the He say that plagiarism and fabrication in an article opinions on how to duced a cornucopia of case came to light, Yang says he felt the weight of from a ZJU researcher were so egregious that stop plagiarism: integrity policies over responsibility for the ZJU and its students, and Springer was considering blocking all submis- go.nature.com/jiqv8d the past decade. But this compelled him to act. “It’s not that I want to sions from the university to its 2,000 science,

12 JANUARY 2012 | VOL 481 | NATURE | 135 © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved NEWS FEATURE technology and medicine journals. (Yang declines to name the researcher or editor.) “It POLICING THE PLAGIARISTS put pressure on. We had to convince them that we could handle the case,” says Yang. A software arms race This time, Yang was ready. He dismissed the main scientist involved, and cut the salary and In October 2008, Yuehong (Helen) Zhang to police Chinese-language journals. In 2009, PhD-student allocation of the corresponding became the first journal editor in China to the China National Knowledge Infrastructure author. “Springer was satisfied,” says Yang. introduce CrossCheck, a tool that compares (CNKI) in Beijing, which shares information Over the past two years, Yang says, he has text against published articles to flag up about research from the country, launched dealt just as briskly with another 40 or so plagiarism. Two years later, she had found a system called the Academic Misconduct misconduct cases at the ZJU. More than 20 that 31% of the 2,233 submissions over Literature Check (AMLC). Sun Xiongyong, researchers have been found guilty of wrong- that time to her publication, the Journal of director of the CNKI Academic Integrity doing after discussion by the university admin- Zhejiang University — Science, contained Research Center, says that the organization istration. For the ten cases involving recent unoriginal material. After reporting the was pushed by publishers and universities graduates, more than half lost their degrees. number in Nature (Y. Zhang Nature 467, to develop the AMLC, which now includes One sued the ZJU to overturn the ruling of 153; 2010), Zhang was harassed on blogs. about 80 million Chinese articles, conference plagiarism. She lost. If work done during your “Many people criticized me. They say I am proceedings and doctoral theses. Its training is fraudulent, “your degree should be unpatriotic. I don’t care. I think I’m doing subscribers include some 4,500 publishers taken away”, says Yang firmly. the right thing. I think it could make science and 600 universities. In cases involving faculty members, three stronger in China.” Sun says that a crucial component of the had their employment terminated, four faced Zhang, who is also vice-president of the system is the ability to check Chinese articles disciplinary action including a pay cut, and the Society of China University Journals in against the 30 million or so English articles rest were issued with public or internal warn- Beijing, has been working to build a journal in the database, and vice versa. “It’s the only ings. Some have been temporarily forbidden that is run to international standards. multi-language check system,” notes Sun. from taking on PhD students. Unlike many Chinese journals, hers insists The systems can be cheated. For example, But laws and punishment go only halfway on peer review. In December 2010, she students who are given access to the AMLC to towards tackling the problem — prevention is became the first Chinese person to win a check their theses before submission might also essential. At the ZJU, Yang has established grant from the International Committee on find passages that trigger the plagiarism a system for mentoring young faculty members Publication Ethics, for a project to analyse warning and then tweak them until the text on research ethics, and since 2009 the university types of plagiarism. But the biggest reward, scrapes through. “AMLC is abused,” says has held more than ten seminars and lectures she says, has been the improvement: only Sun. In response, the CNKI has established on research integrity, with attendance at some 15% of submissions in the first half of 2011 a monitoring system that can check, for surpassing 1,000. Yang also continues his talks contained unoriginal content. example, whether the AMLC was being at universities around the country. “We have There are 5,000 science and technology used before submission. But the arms race to train them to be honest. It’s not enough to journals in China, but only 200 are in English continues: Sun’s latest headache is the use of be aware of the ethics code. You need to really and can use CrossCheck. Zhang says that software available outside China — such as understand it,” says Gong Ke, president of Nan- some 20 do so. A separate effort is under way Turnitin — to defeat the check system. D.C. kai University in , who, with Yang and the AAAS, is preparing a book of scientific-mis- conduct cases that can be used to teach research CVs and their actual achievements. Fang is not archaeologist and historian at Brown Univer- integrity in China and the United States. yet convinced that the ZJU is rigorously inves- sity in Providence, Rhode Island, who is col- tigating all the misconduct cases that it should. laborating with the ZJU to create a course in SLOW PROGRESS “I don’t think he takes his own words seriously,” ethics. “Training graduate students about ethics Yang says it is too early to tell whether his efforts he says of Yang. But Fang notes that he has seen as they enter research laboratories is too little, are really paying off. Most misconduct cases improvements in the 11 years since he started too late and too specific,” she says. “There is a are several years old by the time they come to his own “fight” against misconduct. The media critical need for broader discussion of ethical light, so the researchers involved haven’t been are more willing to report misconduct and choices across the spectrum of Chinese aca- exposed to the education and enforcement appeal for reform, he says, “and the govern- demic, political and economic issues, and this efforts. And there is always the fear that teach- ment at least admits there are problems”. has to begin much earlier in students’ lives.” ing people about misconduct might simply Real change will take more time and Still, the passion for cleaning up China’s sci- make some determined individuals effort. At a 2007 meeting on research ence is tangible. Frankel says that reformers craftier — as in the case of those integrity with the China Association for such as Yang have a different kind of drive from who try to outwit plagiarism- Science and Technology, Frankel recalls, those in the United States, where “the empha- detection software with software one Chinese speaker after another presented sis is on accountability for spending the pub- of their own. “But at least they are data on how bad the situation was and “openly lic’s money, its impact on research progress, more aware that they are doing worried about its effects on how science com- and public trust. My Chinese colleagues view something wrong,” says Yang. ing out of China would be perceived”. The research misconduct as a stain on their country,” Yang is not cleaning up Chinese sci- professional guidelines that are surfacing says Frankel. “It’s almost personal there.” ence on his own. Other universities have now, he says, are “merely a first step. They The reason, suggests Steneck, is that the established ethics courses and strength- have adopted investigative practices and stakes for China are so high. “If other coun- ened their investigation procedures. And procedures similar to the United States but lack tries lose confidence in the integrity of Chinese China’s aggressive ‘online police’ have been experience and manpower needed to be truly science, it is the Chinese who will suffer the rooting out frauds — the XYS blog run by Fang effective. This will take time.” most,” he says. ■ Shimin has become famous for its tenacity. Even the best efforts of administrators Posts on the website discuss problems with data, such as Yang might not be enough to change David Cyranoski is Nature’s Asia-Pacific as well as discrepancies between researchers’ deep-rooted behaviours, says Sheila Bonde, an correspondent.

136 | NATURE | VOL 481 | 12 JANUARY 2012 © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved