Written reprimand and three-year exclusion from submitting proposals and acting as a reviewer due to false information 

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) has once again taken action in response to scientific misconduct: the DFG Joint Committee of Germany’s largest research funding organisation and central self-governing organisation for science and the humanities issued a written reprimand to a researcher and also imposed a three-year ban on submitting funding proposals to the DFG and serving as a reviewer, in accordance with the DFG Rules of Procedure for Dealing with Scientific Misconduct (VerfOwF). 

The researcher was accused of extensive plagiarism in his Habilitation (post-doctoral lecturing qualification) thesis. He had submitted the thesis both in manuscript form and as a project-related publication in support of a funding proposal to the DFG – a proposal that was ultimately rejected on subject-specific grounds.

The allegations concerned passages of text that had been reproduced without appropriate attribution, accounting for roughly one-quarter of the entire 200-page thesis. In particular, the thesis included the near-verbatim reproduction of two articles, each 30 to 40 pages in length, which the researcher himself had co-authored with a different collaborator in each case.

After reviewing written statements and conducting an in-person hearing with the researcher, the DFG Committee of Inquiry on Allegations of Scientific Misconduct concluded that the Habilitation thesis did indeed contain extensive plagiarism. In line with the DFG Rules of Procedure, the Committee determined that the case constituted the offence of making inaccurate research-related statements. 

The researcher argued that he had regarded himself as being the lead author of both articles and had explicitly thanked his co-authors for their support, insisting that he had not concealed their contributions. The Committee found this reasoning unconvincing, however. Nonetheless, it did acknowledge that the researcher had retrospectively admitted to reproducing the material inappropriately and failing to follow standard citation practices, and that he had cooperated in clarifying the facts of the matter. 

Due to the considerable extent of the copied material, the Committee of Inquiry ultimately recommended that the Joint Committee issue a written reprimand and impose a three-year ban on the researcher from submitting funding proposals to the DFG and acting as a reviewer for the organisation. The Joint Committee has now adopted this recommendation in its official decision.   

Further Information

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