Written reprimands have been issued to both medical researchers, and Fulda has also received a one-year ban on submitting funding proposals 

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) has once again taken action in response to a case of scientific misconduct: the Joint Committee of Germany’s largest research funding organisation and central self-governing organisation for science and the humanities adopted measures against medical researchers Professor Dr. Simone Fulda of Kiel University and Professor Dr. Klaus-Michael Debatin of Ulm University Hospital in accordance with the DFG Rules of Procedure for Dealing with Scientific Misconduct (VerfOwF). 

The Joint Committee issued written reprimands to both researchers. In addition, it imposed a one-year ban on Fulda from submitting funding proposals to the DFG. 

This decision concludes the DFG’s investigation into allegations, which attracted considerable attention among the media and the public at large. Fulda and Debatin were accused of having included impermissible duplications and other manipulations of images in over 25 publications dating back to the 1990s, in which they were involved either jointly or in collaboration with other researchers. The allegations were reported to the DFG around the end of 2023 and start of 2024.

The DFG Head Office first conducted a preliminary inquiry based on the information submitted. At this stage, it was found in the case of one of the publications in question by Fulda and five by Debatin that there was no link to DFG funding. The case was then referred to the Committee of Inquiry on Allegations of Scientific Misconduct, chaired by Secretary General Dr. Heide Ahrens. The Committee reviewed the matter in detail, drawing on several expert reports as well as conducting hearings with Fulda and Debatin in person. 

The investigation concerning Simone Fulda focused on eleven DFG-funded publications from the period 2001 to 2019 in which she was the lead author of one such publication and co-author of ten others. The Committee found that eight of these publications contained objective errors. Klaus-Michael Debatin was a co-author of nine of the reviewed publications. In six of these, the Committee likewise identified objective errors. 

In the flawed publications, images had either been duplicated without permission or altered in order to support scientific findings, for example by means of the insertion of individual elements. In the case of three of the publications examined, the allegations were found not to be substantiated on an objective level.

With regard to personal culpability, the Committee concluded that Simone Fulda had acted with gross negligence in relation to seven allegations relating to five publications. Specifically, based on the applicable DFG Rules of Procedure, the Committee determined that Fulda had co-authored four publications containing falsified content, and had personally committed image or figure manipulation in one publication. In the case of Klaus-Michael Debatin, the Committee found gross negligence in relation to three allegations across two publications. As a result, it concluded that he had co-authored two publications containing falsified content. 

In her written statement and at her hearing before the Committee, Simone Fulda argued in particular that, in the case of many of the allegations, the ten-year retention period for primary data had already expired, meaning that the data was no longer available. Without access to the primary data, she maintained, it was not possible to determine with sufficient certainty whether or not any errors of presentation had occurred. The Committee did not accept this argument as stated by Fulda. In several cases, it arrived at the conclusion that the images were flawed based solely on the available figures, publication data and other sources of information. It found that the creation of these duplications could not have occurred in accordance with good research practice. In the Committee’s assessment, it was possible to determine this without recourse to the original data.

Fulda also argued that the allegations related only to “representative sample images”, saying that she had personally reviewed the primary data after each experiment and found it to be accurate. She stated that she had not regarded the similarities in the images presented to her as being questionable, since the figures were meant to look alike and it was often impossible to tell with the naked eye whether there were any differences in detail. In her view, the identified errors amounted at most to “accidental mix-ups”. Where such issues had since been identified, she said, errata had promptly been submitted to the respective publishers. 

The Committee concluded that in those cases where scientific misconduct had been established on an objective level, it was not plausible for the duplications to have gone unnoticed. In the instances in question, according to the Committee, the duplications were so striking that Fulda and Debatin, in their roles as senior or corresponding authors, should definitely have identified them. 

Klaus-Michael Debatin also invoked the current version of the DFG Rules of Procedure for Dealing with Scientific Misconduct (VerfOwF) dated 2024, claiming that the allegations were time-barred. However, the applicable version of VerfOwF is that which was in force at the time the respective funding agreements were concluded. The earlier versions did not include any provisions on limitation periods, so the question of whether the allegations were time-barred did not arise in his case. 

As a result, the Committee of Inquiry recommended that appropriate and proportionate measures be taken in accordance with the DFG Rules of Procedure: a written reprimand and a one-year ban on submitting funding proposals in the case of Simone Fulda, and a written reprimand in the case of Klaus-Michael Debatin. The Joint Committee has now followed these recommendations in its decision.

Further Information

For detailed information on the subject of Good Research Practice(interner Link) see the DFG website.