Queensland University of Technology forced to repay cells grant
Julie Hare
Higher Education Editor
Sydney
https://plus.google.com/102702355567399329238
THE Queensland University of Technology will repay a $275,000 research grant after one of its academics knowingly provided “misleading and incorrect” information on her stem cell research over five years.
The investigation also found her “failures to correct were made with gross and persistent negligence”.
The university was asked by the National Health and Research Council to conduct an external inquiry after two internal inquiries had cleared two of its researchers of knowingly including mistakes on a 2009 grant application and in a subsequent 2010 research paper.
It is understood the inquiry focused on bioscientist Kerry Manton, who was a junior researcher with QUT’s Institute for Health and Biomedical Innovation at the time of the 2009 grant application, and senior researcher Zee Upton.
The external inquiry found Dr Manton had “failed to fulfil (her) responsibilities in relation to the responsible dissemination of research findings and that this, coupled with a failure to correct the errors, constituted research misconduct’’.
But it found that while Professor Upton had failed in her duties as a supervising researcher it was due to “extraordinary work commitments and high expectations of performance”. “Her failures ... were not deliberate or intentional, nor were they reckless,” the report said.
