We conducted an international cross-sectional survey of biomedical researchers' perspectives on the reproducibility of research. This study builds on a widely cited 2016 survey on reproducibility and provides a biomedical-specific and contemporary perspective on reproducibility. To sample the community, we randomly selected 400 journals indexed in MEDLINE, from which we extracted the author names and emails from all articles published between October 1, 2020 and October 1, 2021. We invited participants to complete an anonymous online survey which collected basic demographic information, perceptions about a reproducibility crisis, perceived causes of irreproducibility of research results, experience conducting reproducibility studies, and knowledge of funding and training for research on reproducibility. A total of 1,924 participants accessed our survey, of which 1,630 provided useable responses (response rate 7% of 23,234). Key findings include that 72% of participants agreed there was a reproducibility crisis in biomedicine, with 27% of participants indicating the crisis was "significant." The leading perceived cause of irreproducibility was a "pressure to publish" with 62% of participants indicating it "always" or "very often" contributes. About half of the participants (54%) had run a replication of their own previously published study while slightly more (57%) had run a replication of another researcher's study. Just 16% of participants indicated their institution had established procedures to enhance the reproducibility of biomedical research and 67% felt their institution valued new research over replication studies. Participants also reported few opportunities to obtain funding to attempt to reproduce a study and 83% perceived it would be harder to do so than to get funding to do a novel study. Our results may be used to guide training and interventions to improve research reproducibility and to monitor rates of reproducibility over time. The findings are also relevant to policy makers and academic leadership looking to create incentives and research cultures that support reproducibility and value research quality.

n, many factors could be responsible. The causes can broadly be divided into two categories: (i) fraud and (ii) poor experimental design, execution and analysis. 2. Fraud There are some very famous cases of fraud which range from inappropriate deletion of “outliers” to data manipulation to pure invention. Perhaps the Piltdown man is one of the first famous frauds of the modern scientific era. In 1912 this was claimed to be the evolutionary “missing link” between ape and man. The discovery was later shown to be a forgery produced by combining ape and human skulls [6] . Later, skin transplantation was fraudulently claimed by painting black ink onto a mouse [7] . Modern day science is dogged with studies where images are manipulated and journals have to devise methods to uncover such falsification [8] , [9] . How common is fraud? For rather obvious reasons, it is difficult to obtain an accurate figure. A recent meta analysis has approached this question in considerable detail [10] and points out that 0.02% of papers are retracted because of fraud, a value which therefore gives a minimum estimate of the incidence of fraud. Of course, this may just be the tip of the iceberg with much more fraud either undetected or simply not retracted. The Journal of Cell Biology reported that 1% of papers submitted to it had improperly manipulated images indicating that the real figure may be greater. Another approach to obtain an estimate is to send out confidential questionnaires to scientists about fraud, remembering, of course, that not everyone will admit to it. Analysis of the questionnaires suggests that 2% of scientists admit to major research misconduct themselves and, shockingly, about 15% had seen it in others with even greater numbers engaging in “questionable practices”. Whatever the incidence of fraud, it clearly needs addressing. It should be noted, however, that although journals and referees are now much better at spotting manipulated images and blots, this may be unli

Contaminating the evidence: the reproducibility crisis and fraud in infectious disease research | Infection | Springer Nature Link # Contaminating the evidence: the reproducibility crisis and fraud in infectious disease research - Editorial - Published: 17 January 2026 - (2026) - Cite this article ## Abstract Irreproducible and fraudulent research is an enormous problem that decreases the public’s trust in biomedical science. Unfortunately, infectious disease (ID) research has not escaped the reproducibility crisis and investigator maleficence. This article describes the scope of the problem, explores some of the reasons why investigators commit research fraud, and discusses the surprising lack of oversight by relevant stakeholders including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), scientific journals, and academic institutions. Finally, a novel solution for tackling fraud in ID research is proposed. Science is the pursuit of knowledge through observation, experimentation, and testing. It is arguably humanity’s greatest achievement and has allowed us to live longer, healthier, and happier lives. Most scientists act ethically and responsibly. However, the system of biomedical

Retractions in the scientific literature: is the incidence of research fraud increasing? ## Abstract Background: Scientific papers are retracted for many reasons including fraud (data fabrication or falsification) or error (plagiarism, scientific mistake, ethical problems). Growing attention to fraud in the lay press suggests that the incidence of fraud is increasing. Methods: The reasons for retracting 742 English language research papers retracted from the PubMed database between 2000 and 2010 were evaluated. Reasons for retraction were initially dichotomised as fraud or error and then analysed to determine specific reasons for retraction. Results: Error was more common than fraud (73.5% of papers were retracted for error (or an undisclosed reason) vs 26.6% retracted for fraud). Eight reasons for retraction were identified; the most common reason was scientific mistake in 234 papers (31.5%), but 134 papers (18.1%) were retracted for ambiguous reasons. Fabrication (including data plagiarism) was more common than text plagiarism. Total papers retracted per year have increased sharply over the decade (r=0.96; p<0.001), as have retractions specifically for fraud (r=0.89; p<0.001)

How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data | PLOS One Browse Subject Areas ? Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field. For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click here. - Abstract - Introduction - Methods - Results - Discussion - Supporting Information - Acknowledgments - Author Contributions - References - Reader Comments - Figures ## Abstract The frequency with which scientists fabricate and falsify data, or commit other forms of scientific misconduct is a matter of controversy. Many surveys have asked scientists directly whether they have committed or know of a colleague who committed research misconduct, but their results appeared difficult to compare and synthesize. This is the first meta-analysis of these surveys. To standardize outcomes, the number of respondents who recalled at least one incident of misconduct was calculated for each question, and the analysis was limited to behaviours that distort scientific knowledge: fabrication, falsification, “cooking” of data, etc… Survey questions on plagiarism and other forms of professional misconduct were excluded. The final sampl