Crisis? What Crisis? Institutional Narratives of Scientific Misconduct

• In Event: Reproducibility and Other Problems: Practical and Institutional Responses to Contemporary Crises in Science - II

Abstract

Academic misconduct, authorship conflicts, fake peer reviews: According to headlines like these, science seems to suffer from a host of problems that shake its very core. However, beside this perspective on scientific misconduct there are other accounts of misconduct and related problems as very rare, easily fixable, or mostly harmless. Rather than asking which of these accounts or narratives is most “correct”, this contribution seeks to examine them in more detail. How do these narratives construct and understand “scientific misconduct”? And what norms and values do they refer to?
Making use of interviews with people responsible for handling misconduct cases at academic journals, universities, and other academic organizations, this contribution shows that these actors predominantly locate their work within one of two contrasting narratives: In the first version, misconduct is portrayed as seldom but serious, and as a morally charged transgression that requires harsh punishments. The opposing narrative in contrast portrays false science (including both error and misconduct) as a normal element of the scientific process that will eventually level out by itself. The scientific process and its surrounding community are presented as almost organic and eco-system-like. Here, interventions such as punishments appear as tampering with the capacities for scientific self-correction. Such a narrative of scientific self-correction can be seen to both tap into existing images of the scientific community, and relate to existing power structures within academia that affect the way official investigations and sanctions can be carried out.

Author

• Felicitas Hesselmann, German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies