Scholarly Misconduct and the Law

Résumé du livre

Scholarly Misconduct and the Law is about lying, murdering, thieving, intoxicated and licentious scholars, in academia and in private research institutions. Retractions of falsified research have reached record levels. Scholars are being jailed for their frauds and their predations. Too often scandals about misconduct by scholars have degenerated into sagas that have taken years to come to conclusion, without outcomes in which colleagues and the broader community have confidence.Increasingly the scandals have a denouement in courts and tribunals with legally constituted decision-makers having responsibility for determining whether research fraud, plagiarism, sexual misconduct, defamation, discrimination, forensic impropriety, thefts and other forms of improper behaviour have been proven. The stakes for the individuals and institutions concerned are very high, including when the results have included patient deaths, miscarriages of justice or exploitation of funding agencies. They are also significant for their damage to the reputation for integrity of the relevant disciplines.In Scholarly Misconduct and the Law Freckelton forges new ground by chronicling and analysing the phenomenon of scholarly impropriety and its relationship to the law and legal processes, as well as profiling the circumstances that give rise to it and the personalities of those who perpetrate it. Drawing on notorious cases around the world, he calls for a suite of reforms to institute rigorous, fair and clear processes to establish whether scholars have engaged in misconduct and measures to discourage it.