munich

An investigation into a case of scientific fraud at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding in Cologne has endorsed the institute's decision to dismiss both a technician who admitted manipulating experiments and the leader of her research group, Richard Walden, who accepted overall responsibility (see Nature 393, 293; 1998).

The investigation committee presented its report on the affair, which continued for six years, at the annual meeting of the Max Planck Society (MPS) in Weimar last week. But the report also concludes that Jeff Schell, the director of the institute's department of plant genetics in which the experiments were carried out, did not neglect his duty of ensuring good scientific practice.

Furthermore, Schell's authorship of many of the papers in question could not be regarded as merely honorary, says the report, as he made a significant intellectual contribution to the design of experiments and discussion of their results. New MPS rules frown on honorary authorship.

Crucial experiments in the papers under suspicion, published in high-profile journals including Nature and Science, were repeated during the four-month investigation. The report has been sent to the external chairman of the investigation committee, Walter Odersky, a former president of the German constitutional court, and Hildegund Holzheld, president of the Bavarian constitutional court, who have been asked to judge if any issues have been left open.

The MPS committee on good scientific practice is considering what lessons can be learnt from the case. “We want to encourage more openness between scientists of an institute, so that new results are widely discussed to the point where experiments could be repeated [for confirmation] by colleagues,” says Hubert Markl, president of the MPS.