Source: Cardiff University

Cleared: a formal inquiry into alleged misconduct has absolved Cardiff¡¯s dean of medicine, Paul Morgan, of any wrongdoing

Cardiff University will not investigate any further anonymous allegations of past research misconduct in the laboratory of its dean of medicine after a trawl through dozens of claims turned up just a handful of falsified images.

Cardiff announced last week that a formal inquiry headed by a retired judge had cleared the dean, Paul Morgan, of any wrongdoing. However, a former member of his lab, Rossen Donev, was found guilty of falsifying images in four papers authored between 2006 and 2012.

Dr Donev, who is now a lecturer at Swansea University, was cleared of the more serious charge of fabrication because no reason was found to doubt the validity of the papers¡¯ conclusions.

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The allegations were raised by an anonymous whistleblower using the pseudonym ¡°Clare Francis¡±. Although Cardiff began investigating only six papers, a spokesman said it subsequently received allegations from a single source - assumed to be Ms Francis - about a further 37 papers relating to Professor Morgan¡¯s group. These were examined in a second phase of the investigation and none was upheld.

The university said its approach had been based on advice from the UK Research Integrity Office.

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James Parry, UKRIO¡¯s chief executive, declined to comment on a specific case but said the body¡¯s guidelines advised institutions not to dismiss anonymous allegations ¡°out of hand¡± since complainants often had valid reasons for concealing their identities. Instead, institutions should weigh up the ¡°seriousness¡± of the concerns, the possibility of confirming them and ¡°the credibility of the manner in which they have been raised¡±.

He said the availability of papers online had prompted more people to become interested in scrutinising them for malpractice. This required institutions to ¡°re-evaluate¡± their traditional procedures for handling allegations, including being prepared to field large numbers at once.

But Cardiff said that in light of the ¡°detailed consideration¡± it had given to the 43 complaints received thus far, it had accepted the investigating panel¡¯s recommendation that any further allegations involving papers from Professor Morgan¡¯s group predating the investigation ¡°should not be accepted from an anonymous source¡±.

Gilberto Corbellini, professor of bioethics at the Sapienza University of Rome, noted that most of the rising number of anonymous allegations - which particularly related to image manipulation - turned out to be false: ¡°But scientists and editors have to spend time anxiously searching for old image files: time they could devote to research.¡±

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He said that taking anonymous allegations seriously risked feeding a climate of ¡°punitive moralism¡± in which images were ¡°almost compulsively¡± screened for anomalies ¡°as a substitute for the traditional practice of repeating the experiments¡±. Scientists who subsequently withdrew papers were ¡°put to shame¡± online even when the retraction was because of a ¡°trivial¡± reason that did not undermine their work.

He said a letter he had written on the subject, published last month in the journal Nature, had elicited a response from one journal editor thanking him for providing ¡°a voice of reason in the mad rush of the vigilante¡±. The editor claimed to have been ¡°bombarded by nonsense¡± from an anonymous source, with ¡°nearly all of it¡± proving to be ¡°rubbish¡±.

Meanwhile, Swansea said it would investigate the ¡°issues raised¡± by Cardiff¡¯s report. Cardiff said it had ¡°no plans¡± to make the report public.

Dr Donev did not respond to requests for comment.

paul.jump@tsleducation.com