Under Review with Dr Elisabeth Bik - Research fraud detection, papermills and that rat.

My guest is Elisabeth Bik who is a microbiologist and scientific integrity consultant. Her work involves detecting and outing photo manipulation in scientific publications. This problem has become a rather big one in the world of research, not least since the introduction of generative AI into the world of academic publishing. Elisabeth’s journey into the murky world of academic malpractice started over a decade ago when she was a victim of plagiarism. Her work has resulted in 1600 retractions, expressions of concern, and 1200 corrections as we speak. She is a leader in the area of scientific integrity and has received the 2021 Maddox Prize and the 2024 Einstein Foundation Award. We discussed the increasing scope and financial cost of academic misconduct, driven by the "publish or perish" culture, which leads to the rise of paper mills and the gaming of metrics. We agreed that current unpaid peer review is insufficient to detect fraud and requires professionalised, paid reviewers and secondary systems for scanning complex issues, while Bik strongly advocated for national or international committees to investigate misconduct cases due to conflicts of interest when universities review their own staff. Bik also suggested restructuring the scientific system by eliminating postdoctoral positions in favour of stable staff roles, shifting to 'micro publications' with public peer review, and prioritising funding for proven principal investigators to reduce the pressure to publish and address toxic work cultures. Academia has a 'wicked problem' - actually, it has several. Welcome to Under Review, the podcast where I give guests an opportunity to stop tweaking the edges and start reimagining a future where things might work better. What would stay, what would we build from scratch, and what needs throwing into the Under Review rubbish bin? It’s time to put the system itself... under review." I’m Andy Tattersall and I’m a research communications consultant who previously worked 25 years at a Russell Group university in the UK and over the course of this podcast I will speak to some of the sector’s boldest and brightest thinkers to explore a topic and bring us their most radical, left-field and blue sky ideas for reform. They will get to say what stays and what gets binned. Hosted and produced by Andy Tattersall Elisabeth Bik - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Bik Elisabeth Bik on Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/elisabethbik.bsky... Science Integrity Digest - https://scienceintegritydigest.com/