Retraction Watch Tracking retractions as a window into the...

Retraction Watch

Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process
Australian university to repay $275K grant because of “misleading and incorrect” information

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Zee Upton, via QUT
Courtesy of The Australian, we have an update on a story we first covered in late 2012.
As we reported then:
A contested retraction in Stem Cells and Development has left the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) graduate student who fought for it in limbo, uncertain if he will earn his PhD. And many of those who didn’t want the paper retracted have a significant financial interest in a company whose work was promoted by the research — despite any lack of disclosure in the now-retracted paper.
QUT refused to give the student, Luke Cormack, access to an evaluation of the data in question, but also said that it welcomed an independent probe into a related $275,000 grant.
That probe is now complete, reports The Australian’s Julie Hare, and the QUT will be paying the grant back:
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 investigation centered on two researchers, Kerry Manton and Zee Upton. Upton, as we noted in 2012:
…is consulting chief scientific officer of Tissue Therapies, which QUT spun off to develop technologies based on vitronectin and other compounds. She and other investors co-founded the company in 2003, approached QUT for a license on the intellectual property, and had Tissue Therapies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2004, according to an Upton presentation available on the QUT website. An eprint of another paper by Upton and co-authors available on the QUT site notes that several authors had bought stock in the company.
According to The Australian:
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, more reckless,” the report said.