2014

Decision of 2 December 2014 on plagiarism in a PhD thesis

The DCSD found the Defendant guilty of scientific dishonesty in regard to his PhD thesis. The DCSD considered in detail 10 passages from the PhD thesis and found large-scale direct copying and/or paraphrasing without sufficient indication and referencing of sources.

Decision of 19 November 2014 on data processing in an article and two manuscripts

The DCSD found the Defendant not guilty of scientific dishonesty. The DCSD found a series of breaches of good scientific practice, however, the Defendant was found not to have acted intentionally or with gross negligence in this regard.

Decision of 16 September 2014 on 'scientific product'

The DCSD declined to take the case under consideration as the complaint was aimed at a committee's assessment of a dissertation, which was submitted with a view to obtain a doctoral degree. The DCSD found that the assessment was not a scientific product and hence the case was not within the scope of the DCSD.

Decision of 28 August 2014 on reuse of biopsy material, research protocol, image manipulation, etc. (reopening of decision of 18 December 2013)

18 February 2015

The Defendant has brought the case before the Danish courts and the Eastern High Court has issued its ruling on 18 February 2015. The High Court generally finds that based on the evidence, there is not sufficient grounds for concluding that the Defendant committed scientific dishonesty. The main conclusions of the ruling are:

  • The Defendant's claim, that certain members of the DCSD was not permitted to take part in the case, is dismissed
  • The DCSD is aquitted from the Defendant's claim that the Committees decisions of 18 December 2013 and 28 August 2014 is invalid in so far as the decisions conclude that the Defendant committed scientific dishonesty
  • The Defendant's claim, that the Committee's decision of 28 August 2014 be repealed in so far as the decision concludes that the Defendant committed scientific dishonesty, is sustained
  • The DCSD must pay partial costs of the case

The Eastern High Court has published a summary of the ruling on their website

DCSD have issued a ruling in a case pertaining to an earlier ruling on 18 De-cember 2013, where scientific dishonesty, i.e. research misconduct, was confirmed in six articles on health science. The DCSD reopened the case based on new information.

In the reopened case, the DCSD found the Defendant guilty of scientific dishonesty in 4 of the 12 articles covered by the complaint in the form of:

  • Lack of information about biopsy material in 2 articles entailing that the interrelationship between results was concealed from the reader
  • Lack of information about biopsy material in 2 articles entailing that a selection of test subjects was concealed from the reader
  • Lack of information about biopsy material entailing concealment of the fact that a group of test subjects was subject to a different research protocol than the one described in the article
  • Failure to respond to obvious image manipulation in an article

DCSD found that the Defendant had acted intentionally in relation to the lack of information about biopsy material in 3 articles. In addition DCSD found that the Defendant had acted grossly negligently in relation to the lack of information about biopsy material and therefore the fact that a group of test subjects was subject to a different research protocol than the one described in the article. Furthermore DCSD found the Defendant joint responsible for the image manipulation as the Defendant had acted gross negligently as leading author of the article by failing to respond to the image manipulation.

Decision of 28 August 2014 on consent to submission of an erratum

The DCSD found, that the Defendant not guilty of any scientific dishonesty in this case. The Defendant had followed recognised  scientific practices for submission of an erratum in cases, where the consent of all co-authors had not been obtained.

Decision of 27 August 2014 on reuse of biopsy material in different scientific products 

The DCSD declined to take the case under further consideration as the complaint was manifestly unfounded. The DCSD found that the article in question contained sufficient information about the origin of the biopsy material.

Decision of 6 May 2014 on 'scientific product'

The chairman of the DCSD declined to take the case under consideration as the complaint was aimed at a feature in a newspaper. Thus the complaint did not concern a scientific product and was not within the scope of the DCSD.