Eduard Aibar
Science and Technology Studies Professor
This article presents the first study to date on the perception, attitudes and experiences of scientific fraud among researchers in the field of biomedical science in Spain. The study is based on a survey of 27 questions, answered anonymously by 403 scientists. Although the sample is not representative, the results are reliable and undoubtedly significant. The statistical analysis carried out is very rigorous and, in addition, both the research design and the discussion of the results are solidly anchored in the most important previous international literature.
The main result is undoubtedly the high prevalence of scientific fraud in our country. Four out of ten researchers report having engaged in fraudulent conduct; a figure slightly higher than that shown in similar studies in other countries. The study also has the merit of extending the traditional types of scientific fraud (falsification, manipulation and plagiarism) to the new varieties that have emerged in recent decades: false authorship, conflicts of interest, publication in predatory journals and the use of paper mills (companies that produce fraudulent articles in exchange for money). Some of these new variants of fraud show worrying rates in Spain, as they are clearly higher than in other neighbouring countries.