中國發起學術打假行動

Chinese authorities are cracking down on academic fraud after an international Medical journal retracted 107 Chinese-authored papers from the past five years, in the biggest case to date of fake peer reviews to endorse research.

中國當局正在打擊學術欺詐，此前一份國際醫學期刊撤回了中國作者在過去五年裏發表的107篇論文，構成史上最大的同行評議造假案例。

Springer, publisher of the journal Tumor Biology, said the retractions were made because the peer review process — in which an independent academic recommends a paper for publication — had been “deliberately compromised by fabricated peer reviewer reports”.

《腫瘤生物學》(Tumor Biology)期刊的出版商斯普林格(Springer)表示，之所以撤稿，是因爲同行評議流程（由一名獨立學者建議發表一篇論文）已被“僞造的同行評議報告故意破壞”。

China’s ministry of science and technology said this week that the incident had “seriously harmed the international reputation of our country's scientific research and the dignity of Chinese scientists at large”. It vowed a “no tolerance” approach to academic fraud.

中國科技部上週表示，這起事件“嚴重損害了我國科技界的國際聲譽和廣大科技人員的尊嚴”。該部誓言對學術造假“零容忍”。

The government pledged to investigate the papers’ authors and may strip them of their academic roles. All grant funding to the academics involved has been halted.

政府承諾對撤稿論文逐一徹查，有些涉事論文作者可能被剝奪學術職務。他們承擔或正在申請經費的科研項目已被暫停。

Academic publishing is the latest sector of the Chinese economy to encounter fake products, sales figures or reviews. Ecommerce has been plagued by waves of fake orders designed to improve the rankings of online sellers, while the cinema industry has been embroiled in a controversy over government attempts to censor unfavourable reviews of Chinese-made films.

學術出版是中國經濟中遭遇假冒的產品、銷售數據或評論的最新領域。電子商務受到一波又一波虛假訂單的困擾，其目的是提高在線賣家的排名，電影院線也捲入一項爭議，涉及政府意圖刪除對國產電影的差評。

China’s race to become a world leader in science and technology has led it to become the second-biggest source of academic publications globally.

中國要成爲世界科技領先者的努力，已經使其成爲全球第二大學術發表來源。

However, the pressure applied to academics to publish or perish has had adverse effects, said Zhang Yuehong, an editor of the Journal of Zhejiang University.

然而，《浙江大學學報》的張月紅總編表示，學者們受到的發表不了論文就不能晉升的壓力，產生了不利影響。

In recent years, China has seen a surge in academic scandals in medicine and biology. Ms Zhang, who pioneered anti-plagiarism software in scientific publishing, called biotechnology a “disaster area”.

近年來，中國在醫學和生物學領域爆出的學術醜聞激增。在科學出版工作中率先採用反剽竊軟件的張月紅表示，生物技術領域尤其是一個“重災區”。

Last year, the food and drug regulator found that 81 per cent of applications for drug approvals were withdrawn after the pharmaceutical companies were asked to check their clinical data.

去年，食品和藥物監管機構發現，81%的藥物審批申請在製藥公司被要求覈查其臨牀數據後被撤回。

The US, which had led the world in academic retractions over the past three decades, was overtaken by China in 2009, according to a paper by Michael Grieneisen and Minghua Zhang at the University of California, Davis.

根據加利福尼亞大學戴維斯分校(University of California, Davis)的邁克爾·格列內森(Michael Grieneisen)和張明華合寫的一篇論文，美國曾經在30年期間一直在學術撤稿方面“領銜”世界，但在2009年被中國超越。

China and the US continued to have high numbers of retractions since 2010, but China’s rate was roughly the global average when taking into consideration the volume of papers produced, said Harry Xia, president of the Alliance for Scientific Editing in China.

中國英文科技論文編輯聯盟(ASEC)理事長夏華向(Harry Xia)表示，自2010年以來，中國和美國的撤稿數量都繼續偏高，但考慮到論文的絕對數量，中國的撤稿率與全球平均水平大致相符。

The difference was that Chinese retractions were more likely to be associated with academic misconduct, Mr Xia added. China leads the world for articles retracted due to fake peer review, according to data from Retraction Watch, an NGO that tracks academic retractions.

夏華向補充說，不同點在於，中國的撤稿更有可能涉及學術不端行爲。追蹤學術撤稿的非政府組織“撤稿觀察”(Retraction Watch)的數據顯示，就同行評議造假導致論文被撤稿而言，中國領先世界。

In 2015, the British Medical Journal’s BioMed Central retracted 43 papers on suspicion of fake peer reviews, of which 41 were by Chinese authors.

2015年，《英國醫學期刊》的出版商BioMed Central以涉嫌同行評議造假爲由，撤回了43篇論文，其中41篇出自中國作者之手。

In addition, the rise of scientific editing companies has led to researchers paying not only for proofreading or checking English translations, but for scientific scrutiny and even additional data, according to a paper by Karen Kaplan, an editor at the journal Nature.

此外，根據科學刊物《自然》(Nature)的編輯之一卡倫·卡普蘭(Karen Kaplan)發表的一篇論文，科學編輯公司的興起導致研究人員不僅花錢請人校對或檢查英文翻譯，而且請人進行專業審議，甚至補充數據。

The government-backed National Natural Science Foundation of China said that 28 of 117 Chinese papers retracted by major international publishers from 2015-16 had been “touched up” by companies, with some being “bought from and written by others”.

中國政府支持的國家自然科學基金委員會(NSFC)表示，2015-16年期間被主要國際出版社撤回的117篇中國論文中，有28篇曾經過中介公司潤色，甚至有一些是花錢請人代寫的。

“One possible reason for the higher rate [in China] is the large bonuses paid to researchers who publish in prestigious journals,” said Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch.

“中國撤稿率較高的一個原因可能是在知名期刊發表論文的研究人員能獲得大筆獎金，”撤稿觀察聯合創始人伊萬·奧朗斯基(Ivan Oransky)表示。

Not only university researchers but also practising doctors in China are required to publish in international journals to get promoted.

在中國，不僅是高校研究人員，就連執業的醫生都要在國際期刊上發表論文，才能獲得晉升。

“China needs to let scientific research calm down. The research world here is too fickle and impatient,” said Ms Zhang.

“中國需要讓科學研究平靜下來。這裏的研究界太浮躁和缺乏耐心了，”張月紅表示。