“Universities and non-university research institutions strive to prevent—or at least investigate—scientific misconduct, with varying degrees of success. Catching merely the tip of the iceberg is certainly better than overlooking or even ignoring the iceberg altogether. A great deal of flotsam from the "sea of a thousand grievances" washes up on the desks of ombudspersons; while they serve as the first point of contact for suspected misconduct, they often end up acting as a general repository for complaints. As in any field, there are vexatious complainants and charlatans who, in a desperate bid for a shred of attention, are all too eager to loudly raise a hue and cry about alleged "scientific fraud." Every administration likely has to contend with such burdens.
But what exactly constitutes scientific misconduct? There is often uncertainty surrounding this. Scientific misconduct presupposes a specific attack on the integrity, substantive accuracy, or reliability of scientific research and teaching. General legal violations that merely occur in the context of scientific activity do not fall into this category. After all, the academic world sees its share of workplace bullying and sexual harassment, misappropriation of funds, vandalism, patent infringement, and the mislabeling of short holidays as business trips.
Academia is no better than the rest of the world. These are certainly breaches of employment obligations and, in some cases, criminal offenses.
However, they only qualify as scientific misconduct if they cause functional disruptions specific to the scientific enterprise—that is, if they compromise substantive accuracy or the accurate representation of actual achievements.
For instance, anyone who grants co-authorship on papers in exchange for sexual favors, or suppresses unwanted research findings through harassment, is committing scientific misconduct.
Conversely, someone who simply abuses power for personal gain is usually an issue primarily for labor and disciplinary law.
Rules of scientific integrity protect scientific authorship, which must be fairly attributed according to the respective individual contributions to a scientific research achievement. Scientific integrity is personal; it requires standing by one’s work. All named authors assume substantive responsibility for the accuracy of the research underlying a publication. Furthermore, anyone who has made original scientific contributions must be made visible through authorship, in accordance with the conventions of the discipline.
Once established, authorship can neither be waived nor revoked. In contrast to scientific authorship, the frequently invoked concept of "intellectual property" enjoys no such protection. This concept encompasses private-law entitlements that are, in principle, subject to disposition by the rights holder. Universities cannot enact rules for the protection of intellectual property, if only because the relevant legislation falls within the exclusive legislative competence of the Federal Government pursuant to Article 73, Paragraph 1, No. 9 of the Basic Law. The Federal Constitutional Court recently underscored this emphatically (Order of March 24, 2026 – 2 BvL 3/18).
Determining scientific misconduct does not require a positive evaluation of the scientific merit of a work; that task remains the prerogative of institutions within the scientific system. Administrative bodies or courts can also engage in the mere identification of errors. While the requirements for good scientific practice are formulated from within the scientific community, the definitions of misconduct constitute normative rules. For instance, the Federal Labor Court recently pointed out (Order of March 19, 2026 – 2 AZN 536/25) that "plagiarism" is a legal concept subject to judicial review. While a court may dispense with obtaining an expert opinion when assessing a factual question requiring specialized knowledge only if it possesses such expertise itself, the resolution of legal questions remains the exclusive province of the judiciary. Plagiarism checks may be technically complex, yet epistemically, they possess the depth of "paint-by-numbers." Establishing whether someone [has used] research data falsifying data may require technical (forensic) expertise in more complex cases (such as the manipulation of image data). However, the misconduct of data falsification remains defined in normative terms. Subsuming the facts under this definition does not require discipline-specific scientific expertise. Consequently, under most regulations, doctoral degrees are revoked—once the deception has been exposed—by bodies with parity-based representation (such as the faculty council), which include students and members who do not hold a doctorate.
Rules of good scientific practice are intended to ensure sound science by establishing a specific professional ethic aligned with the practices of the respective discipline. However, an error does not necessarily constitute misconduct. Mistakes occur daily in the scientific process; this is unavoidable and can even foster insight. Good scientific practice therefore requires a culture that consciously addresses and continuously processes errors.
Serious violations of rules, on the other hand, are what constitute scientific misconduct.
This applies not only to intentional breaches of standards safeguarding scientific integrity but—as is widely acknowledged—also to gross negligence. Borrowed from legal terminology, this category refers to a particularly severe failure to exercise the care required in a given context. Precautions or considerations that should have been obvious to anyone are neglected or ignored. The boundary between this and "conditional intent"—where a professional error is deemed possible and accepted—is fluid. For instance, an author writing a monograph who plans to add footnotes later is generally committing intentional plagiarism, as they accept the risk that some of the thousand citations might be overlooked.
But which rules are so fundamental that anyone engaged in scientific work must know them, and whose violation indicates gross negligence? Generally speaking, these include at least the rules detailed and spelled out by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in its code, "Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice." Added to these are the specific stipulations of individual professional societies, most of which have formulated their own guidelines. In cases of doubt—and doubt is a scientific virtue—one can seek advice. Local ombudspersons or the Ombudsman Committee for Scientific Integrity of the Alliance of Science Organisations exist for this very purpose. Such conflicts can often be avoided from the outset.
Responsibility for the alarmingly widespread lack of knowledge regarding these basic rules cannot be shifted onto the institution or one's supervisor. Structural deficiencies in training or irresponsible behavior by supervisors do not absolve individuals of the personal responsibility that remains central to independent scientific work. While flawed guidance—and certainly instructions to violate rules—constitute misconduct in their own right, they do not fundamentally exonerate those who engage in clearly dishonest practices. Rules of scientific integrity protect the scientific community as a whole and the integrity of the discipline, not merely an examination process or an institute's internal workflows. Collusion in dishonest practices therefore constitutes misconduct.
One example is the practice of "gift authorship," which is inherently dishonest because it obscures accountability, even if all parties consent to this unearned credit. Anyone who has not contributed (sufficiently) to the research underlying a publication cannot vouch for its scientific accuracy as an author. Nevertheless, in disciplines where publication counts matter, it occasionally happens that someone urgently "needs" a publication—for instance, to complete a doctoral or habilitation process.
An institute director or research group leader might "benevolently" grant co-authorship to help out, tacking individuals onto manuscripts they did not earn a place on. This is undoubtedly misconduct—committed not only by the person granting the credit but also by the co-authors who simply tolerate the ruse. The same applies when a dissertation is submitted despite the reviewers being aware of plagiarism or data fabrication. In such cases, the professional community is being deceived; such deception is a collective act.
Does a finding of misconduct, however, also presuppose culpability? Culpability refers to the individual’s blameworthiness for violating norms. Under criminal law, culpability may be ruled out in cases such as psychosis or severe impairment of consciousness. Scientific misconduct, by contrast, does not depend on a finding of culpability. Investigation procedures are not intended to determine culpability, but rather to facilitate self-correction within the scientific system. Merely establishing that misconduct occurred does not constitute the imposition of a sanction.
Sanctions are reserved for subsequent measures—such as disciplinary proceedings—where the principle of culpability applies. In contrast, investigation procedures merely identify misconduct as such. Administrative measures serve to mitigate the risk of dishonest scientific work gaining traction. If someone falsifies data while heavily intoxicated or commits plagiarism while suffering from schizophrenia, the need for correction remains regardless of the individual's culpability. Administrative measures may be taken to protect third parties (for example, from harassment); a plagiarized dissertation might be "flagged," or a publication retracted.
There is a significant public interest in preventing the dysfunction caused by dishonest scientific practices. Dishonesty undermines scientific integrity and, by extension, reliability of scientific knowledge. Trust is eroding. In fields such as pharmacology, for instance, the falsification of data can even cost lives. Effective countermeasures are therefore essential. While conceptual precision helps, it cannot replace professional ethics.
Prof. Dr. Klaus Ferdinand Gärditz teaches Public Law at the University of Bonn.” [1]
1. Was eigentlich ist wissenschaftliches Fehlverhalten?: Schlechte Wissenschaft ist nicht notwendig Fehlverhalten. Die Grenze zwischen Fahrlässigkeit und bedingtem Vorsatz ist allerdings fließend. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; Frankfurt. 03 June 2026: 7. Von Klaus Ferdinand Gärditz
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