All authors responsible for research misconduct in Sweden

Researchers cannot claim ignorance of their co-authors’ misconduct, says national board

All named authors on a research paper are responsible for any misconduct carried out by their co-authors, according to the Swedish National Board for Assessment of Research Misconduct (NPOF).

Researchers who have been reported for research misconduct often claim that they were unaware of their co-authors’ actions and that it is impractical for them to check all of each author’s contributions—but that argument is usually dismissed by NPOF. Instead, NPOF has indicated that if a researcher is prepared to accept credit when they put their name to an article, they should also be prepared to accept their share of responsibility if things go wrong.