There’s Fraud in Science – A New Fund Seeks To Tackle It
The Elisabeth Bik Science Integrity Fund will provide financial support to advocates of science integrity.
Complete the form below to unlock access to ALL audio articles.
In 2024, Dr. Elisabeth Bik, a microbiologist and fierce advocate for integrity in science, won the Einstein Foundation Individual Award, which honors researchers and institutions that are working to advance the quality, transparency and reproducibility of science and research.
Bik has now announced that the £200,000 prize proceeds will be used to establish The Elisabeth Bik Science Integrity Fund in partnership with The Center For Scientific Integrity, a nonprofit organization that runs Retraction Watch.
In Bik’s words, keeping science honest takes a team effort. The fund will provide financial resources to Bik and other members of the science integrity advocate community. It will support training programs, grants and/or awards and educational or outreach initiatives that help foster transparency and accountability in scientific research. The partnership with The Center For Scientific Integrity will provide expertise in nonprofit development and administration, but Bik will dictate how the resources are used.
“This Fund is a great chance to help science integrity advocates work better together to ensure research misconduct is exposed and addressed,” Bik said, adding that she wants to bring together “even more sharp-eyed sleuths” to “keep research on the right track”.
Bik’s journey to science integrity advocate
Bik’s venture into scientific sleuthing began as a hobby when she detected duplicated western blot images in a PhD thesis.
She started to spend her evenings and weekends trawling through published papers, investigating any evidence of image manipulation. In 2016, Bik published her work scanning images from over 20,000 papers published in scientific journals from 1995–2014 in mBio. She found that 3.8% of published papers contained “problematic figures” and at least half presented with features suggestive of “deliberate manipulation”.
In 2019, Bik left her job as director of science at Astarte Medical to become a full-time science integrity consultant, publicizing her work via the blog Science Integrity Digest. As of December 2024, her efforts have resulted in 1,331 retractions, 215 expressions of concern and 1074 corrections, according to the blog.
Subscribe to Technology Networks’ daily newsletter, delivering breaking science news straight to your inbox every day.Want more breaking news?
Bik – now considered an expert in identifying image manipulation – has published educational resources to help others promote integrity in science. How-to guides on reporting misconduct to a journal and tools for detecting plagiarism are all freely available on her blog.
Bik’s pursuit of keeping science honest hasn’t been smooth sailing; she has faced legal threats and significant online harassment. The new fund, however, demonstrates that she is undeterred and eager to help others combat malpractice.
“We see the fund fitting extremely well with our efforts at Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database, as well as the Retraction Watch Sleuth In Residence program,” Ivan Oransky, cofounder of Retraction Watch and executive director of The Center For Scientific Integrity, said. “We are grateful that Bik has chosen us as a partner and can’t wait to see how much more impact the fund will allow her to have.”
At the time of reporting, The Center For Scientific Integrity website does not yet provide information on how to apply for the fund. In an interview, Bik said the application form will be “fairly easy” and that she hopes the fund will attract further donations.
