2024 Einstein Foundation Award Winners Colloquium

From Detection to Prevention: Improving the Scientific Publication Record Through Error Detection, Post-Publication Peer Review, and Image Guidelines

We are excited to invite you to an engaging colloquium on scientific integrity, featuring prominent experts in the field:

  • Elisabeth Bik, a research integrity consultant, has uncovered fraudulent data in over 7,600 scientific papers and exposed the practices of so called „paper mills“ that produce counterfeit scientific articles
  • Brandon Stell, founder of PubPeer, a platform for rapid post-publication peer review to jointly improve scientific publications, since its launch in 2012, 19% of global retractions have had prior discussions on the PubPeer
  • Helena Jambor & Christopher Schmied, co-lead PixelQuality, a community-driven initiative aimed at enhancing image data quality and reproducibility.

This event will explore diverse approaches to improving the scientific publication record, focusing on error detection, post-publication peer review, and image quality standards. Join us for an insightful discussion on how we can foster more reliable and transparent scientific communication.

Why attend?

  • Learn from experts in the field of scientific integrity and error detection.
  • Understand the importance of post-publication peer review in improving research quality.
  • Discover new guidelines for publishing high-quality, reproducible scientific images.
  • Network with researchers committed to maintaining transparency and trust in science.

Speakers & presentations

Science builds upon science. Even after peer-review and publication, science papers could still contain images or other data of concern. If not addressed post-publication, papers containing incorrect or even falsified data could lead to wasted time and money spent by other researchers trying to reproduce those results. Elisabeth Bik is an image forensics detective who left her paid job in industry to search for and report biomedical articles that contain errors or data of concern. She has done a systematic scan of 20,000 papers in 40 journals and found that about 4% of these contained inappropriately duplicated images. In her talk, she will present several types of inappropriately duplicated images, how to report such problems and how journals and institutions handle such allegations. Finally, she will address the growing problems of 'paper mills', for-profit networks that produce and sell large amounts of low-quality or fake papers, often with the use of artificial intelligence.

Elisabeth Bik, PhD, Harbers Bik Science Consultants, CA, USA

PubPeer was created in 2012 to facilitate the correction of science and accelerate the convergence of ideas through open, public discussion. By focusing on the substance of scientific publications, PubPeer combats the notion that publication is a definitive event establishing the truth of a result and counters the damaging over-reliance on indirect metrics such as journal name, impact factor, or H-index as indicators of correctness and quality. The use of these unreliable indicators has opened the door to gaming of research reputations through questionable and even fraudulent practices; recent years have even seen the arrival of the organised production of fake papers and citations, by so-called papermills. Since its launch, PubPeer has grown to become the reference platform for exposing low-quality research, particularly in cases where the integrity of a publication is in question. Its essential characteristics include the ability to discuss any scientific article, speed, simplicity, a permanent right of reply for authors, the availability of anonymity, and rigorous content moderation. In parallel, we have witnessed the emergence of a community of dedicated and expert analysts who have exposed unsuspected volumes of questionable and fraudulent research. These volunteers are at the forefront of the fight against the subversion of the principles of scientific research. In this talk, I will share insights and observations from over a decade of running this platform, highlighting its impact on the scientific community and its potential to transform how research is evaluated and rewarded.

Brandon Stell, PhD, Co-Founder, PubPeer & Co-Leader, Cerebellar Neurophysiology Team, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Paris Cité, France

Figures are a cornerstone of research data communication, shaping how scientific findings are interpreted, trusted, and built upon. To fulfil this role, they must be both understandable and reproducible. However, many images in scientific publications lack sufficient explanation, making them difficult for readers to interpret. In this talk, we will present our community-led initiatives aimed at establishing standards for the visual presentation of image data. These standards will serve as the foundation for a core training curriculum in image presentation, set clear requirements for image publishing in scientific journals, and provide a reference framework to address future challenges as the field of bioimaging continues to evolve.

Helena Jambor, PhD, Associate Professor at the University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons
Dr Christopher Schmied, PostDoc, Leibniz Institut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP)

Event partner

Berlin School of Integrative Oncology at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin: The Berlin School of Integrative Oncology (BSIO) is a joint graduate school of the Charité - Universitätsmedizin BerlinHumboldt-Universität zu BerlinFreie Universität and non-university research institutions dedicated to cancer research in an international context.

Updates & contact information

Follow the event on LinkedIn for updates and highlights.

For further inquiries, please contact:
Ulrike Pannasch
up@einsteinfoundation.de