Academic Misconduct: Scholars With Fancy Titles Under Probe

A number of scholars from Tongji University, Nankai University, Sun Yat-sen University and other institutions are in hot water, facing accusations of falsification in their papers, some of which have been published in Nature research magazine.

Published papers in such esteemed journals as Nature, as a rule, go a long way toward earning titles such as Changjiang Scholar, or grants like The National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, to say nothing of administrative ranks as college dean.

Changjiang Scholar, a national talent scheme, was launched in 1998 to recruit top academics to boost China's higher education and scientific research capacity. Distinguished Young Scholars are innovative researchers who have distinguished themselves in their fields.

Each year, nationally, the combined number of recipients of these two titles is less than 1,000.

You can imagine how competitive they are, but you might also be surprised by how easily some of them risk being stripped of their titles for falsifying research findings.

The whistle-blower is Geng Hongwei, better known in his Douyin (or Chinese version of TikTok) vlog as "Classmate Geng Tells His Story."

In April, Geng pointed an accusing finger at the research team led by Wang Ping, dean of the School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology at Tongji University, at once a Distinguished Young Scholar and a Distinguished Changjiang Scholar.

The vlogger pointed out that a paper attributed to Wang's team, published in Nature in November 2024, contained large amounts of man-made data that fit a certain pattern.

Apparently, the fabricators were so careless, or reckless, that they did not even bother with a randomizer.

For example, in the paper, all figures in one column end in 5, and figures in two columns have a precise difference of 0.3, and there are different decimal places across different figures in one table.

The weights of laboratory mice were also a telltale. "Anyone who has weighed mice in a lab knows that readings to two decimal places cannot be accurate," Geng explained, for mice would keep moving. Thus, one decimal place is sufficient.

However, of the 196 mice cited in the paper, except for one, all had their weight measured up to two decimal places.

Geng knows this well, for he has earned a Bachelor's and Master's degrees in biology from Jilin University and dropped out of his doctoral studies in Biomedical Engineering at Beihang University in 2025.

The evidence was so damning that Tongji University, in a notice on May 6, after confirming the malpractice, dismissed Jin Jiali, the first author, and removed Wang, the corresponding author, from the deanship and demoted him two ranks in his professional status.

Encouraged, Geng went on a shooting spree.

Soon afterwards, he was picking off several other scholars, including the dean of the School of Life Sciences, Nankai University; a deputy dean of the School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University; a deputy director of the Experimental Research Department at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center; and dean of the School of Translational Medicine, Shanghai University.

All universities in question have pledged investigations.

Part of Geng's success lies in his astute choice of targets, who are all big shots in a sense, for a reason.

First, those adorned with fancy academic and administrative titles are often entitled to significant research grants.

Second, their manner of fabrication is so crude that it could easily be explained, even to a layman's audience.

This also leads to another corollary.

It can be safely concluded that the prevalence of deception and falsification could have been markedly understated because most falsifiers would be discrete enough to use a randomizer, which would make their deceptions opaque to artificial intelligence (AI) detection, which Geng relies on.

These big shots could be more vulnerable for another reason.

A researcher revealed that fancy titles such as Changjiang Scholar and Distinguished Young Scholar often come with administrative duties, which can be energy-consuming. With less time for actual research and more ambition, they are more ready to take credit for their team members' research achievements. According to a report by Xinhua News Agency, an insider said "they are too busy and may not even know what their subordinates are doing in the research."

Nor do universities and research institutes have the capacity for crying foul. A researcher from a national research institute said research departments are chiefly responsible for keeping documents for record, rather than for conducting substantive reviews.

The sheer number of papers and their specialized nature make outside reviews impractical.

And dishonesty is much encouraged by the pervasive obsession with published papers, which is a boon not only to the authors but to schools as well.

Papers published in top journals are a key indicator for working out the prestige and rankings of a university.

When publication output becomes an overriding priority, personal integrity of the authors is often the only defense.

Therefore, Geng's recent crusade, highly sporadic and quixotic, is unlikely to lead to systemic improvement.

Heavyweight institutions must weigh in with efforts to effect real change.