Clare Francis (science critic)

This article is about the critic of scientific publications. For the novelist, see Clare Francis.

Clare Francis is a pseudonym used since 2010 for hundreds of whistle-blowing emails sent to the editors of scientific journals that call attention to suspected cases of plagiarism and fabricated or duplicated figures.[1]

Mixed response from editors

While Francis's allegations are sometimes valid,[2] they are not always acted upon. Some editors do not wish to respond to anonymous whistleblowers;[2] others have found Francis's claims to be lacking in verifiability or even a waste of time to investigate.[3]

Tom Reller of Elsevier explains how publishers deal with Francis:

Generally speaking, Clare was rather disruptive at first, but by now most editors and publishing teams have an approach in place when it comes to managing Clare’s demands and threats. Clare's emails are read and assessed, but they’ve set boundaries in regard to what kinds of cases they’ll investigate, how far back, and how many papers they'll look into before deciding if it's warranted to go any further. (Many cases will require cross referencing one piece of original research with 5, 10 or more suspected papers to plagiarize it).[4]

In a Labtimes editorial Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky, who run the Retraction Watch blog, have advocated that "Editors should stop ignoring anonymous whistle-blowers", including Clare Francis.[5]

References

  1. ↑ Nature. Research ethics: 3 ways to blow the whistle
  2. 1 2 Retraction Watch. Clare Francis scores a bullseye: Journal of Cell Biology paper retracted for image manipulation
  3. ↑ The Scientist. What to do about "Clare Francis"
  4. ↑ Elsevier Corporate Commentary. It's not that Clare Francis is a pseudonym; it's that the pseudonym is Clare Francis
  5. ↑ http://www.labtimes.org/labtimes/issues/lt2011/lt07/lt_2011_07_39_39.pdf

External links

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