Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 3 December 2008 | Nature 456, 557 (2008) | doi:10.1038/456557a
News
Austrian ethics watchdog launched
Scandals prompt formation of misconduct body.
In the wake of the misconduct scandals that have shaken the scientific community in Austria, universities and leading research institutions have created an Agency for Scientific Integrity.
In future, a scientist at any Austrian university or research institute who is concerned about misconduct will be able to turn to this body, the first of its kind in the country, for confidential help.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email webadmin@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.
I hope the Austrian scientists don't take the news in a negative manner, because by setting up this agency, they had managed to leapfrog many more scientifically advanced countries including the US. Of course, the devil is in the details, so we have to wait and see how it goes.
Agency for Scientific Integrity should also be formed on EU level. So far, EU provides a lot of funding to various research groups in different countries but has no instruments to control ethical issues in funded research (or it is hidden so well that nobody is aware of it). Solving possible problems is left on national bodies which in many countries simply do not exist. Scientist who discovers possible case of scientific misconduct has no international body to complain. It looks like on international level nobody really cares about scientific fraud and other misconduct problems. Science is belived to be "self correcting" and this does happens in long run with cost of lost funds and research time of many people.