Experts often point to the link between embarrassing retractions and tough pressure on academics to produce result-oriented investigations, but recent scandals have raised concerns of a more widespread culture of pressuring subordinates and other issues that lead to misconduct.
A brief review of responses to major research misconduct cases in Japan
The University of Tokyo, the country’s most prestigious research institution, this month revealed the results of its year-long investigation into data falsification involving five papers supervised and published by the university’s Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences between 2008 and 2015. The scandal rocked the country’s scientific community last year.
It showed that rather than being isolated cases, intentional enhancement of images was common in that lab. The supervisor, a renowned Japanese cell biologist, Professor Yoshinori Watanabe, was identified as being mainly responsible for putting pressure on the co-author, his subordinate.
