More than 800 scientists have signed a petition started two weeks ago campaigning for an overhaul of research ethics and the assessment process for researchers in Serbia, amid systematic and widely-tolerated academic misconduct. An open letter has also been sent to the science and education ministry.

The letter details a damning situation of research and publication misconduct, including widespread plagiarism, self-plagiarism and duplication of papers; the formation of ‘citation cartels’ where friends’ names are added as co-authors on papers; and artificially upping the impact factor of predatory journals that publish low quality work by citing unrelated research from the same journals.

Read the full article in Chemistry World

• About
• Latest Posts

Mićo Tatalović

Science journalist, news editor at Research Professional News

Mićo Tatalović is a news editor at Research Professional News. He has previously worked as a science news editor at Nature, New Scientist, and SciDev.Net. In 2018, he completed the Knight Science Journalism Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, US, where he researched the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in science journalism. He is also immediate former chairman of the Association of British Science Writers, and a board member of the European Federation for Science Journalism.

He runs the section Balkan Science Beat.

Latest posts by Mićo Tatalović (see all)

• The science and ethics of turning octopuses into ‘lab rats’ - 24 February, 2022
• UK recorded more than 10,000 extra non-covid deaths since July: how do we know vaccines are not to blame? - 17 February, 2022
• Professor Balthazar’s biggest flops: how the cult 1960-70s Yugoslav animation series portrayed failure in science - 17 October, 2021