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Indian HEIs. Therefore, the IQAC is accountable and has mandated responsibility to ensure quality
standard and integrity in research carried out in its institutions. Lack of transparency in scrutinizing
research data by the institutions, could severely damage them. IQAC is expected to assist the
respective HEIs to build the required ambience for quality research, integrated with ethical principles,
honesty, trustworthiness, and with high regard for the scientific record.

Mistrust in Research

There are some unpleasant examples of unethical research practices, which perhaps could have been
avoided by a robust system of ethical research ambience actively monitored by cells like the IQAC. In
one such incident, an author of several reputed publications, John R. Darsee, M.D., was exposed by
Harvard University, for his fabricated research data while serving as a research fellow at the Harvard
School of Medicine. Suspecting the integrity of Darsee’s research, Emory University, where Darsee
served before working at Harvard, made extensive investigations through both internal and external
committees, and revealed Darsee’s use of an alarming degree of fraud through fabricated data. Faculty/
Researchers at Emory University, retracted the publication (Darsee, et al., 1979), with a strongly-
worded apology. The letter pointed out incomplete laboratory and clinical records, compounded by
the failure to sustain the results and conclusions presented in the article.

In a similar case, a research paper authored by Anil Potti, et al. (2006). was retracted by Duke
University. The reasons cited were reported failure to reproduce results supporting the validation of
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the lung metagene model. Incidentally, Dr. Potti was later suspended by the University in another case,
which demonstrated the absence of integrity and ethics in his claim as a Rhodes Scholar. However, the
crisis relating to the lack of research integrity in Duke University was settled only through judiciary
intervention, as reported by the media recently. Duke University had to pay $112.5 million to the U.S.
government to settle a lawsuit brought by a former employee, who alleged that the university included
falsified data in applications and reports for federal grants worth nearly $200 million. Prof. Vincent
E. Price, President of Duke University, admitted the devastating impact of the research fraud and
reinforced the need for a focused commitment on promoting research integrity and accountability.

Lessons to be Learnt

The implications of unacceptable research integrity, which has global relevance, has been very firmly
expressed in its judgement on the Duke University case by the US Department of Justice, and as stated
by Matthew G.T. Martin, US Attorney for Middle District of North Carolina, “Taxpayers expect and
deserve that federal grant dollars will be used efficiently and honestly. Individuals and Institutions that
receive research funding from the federal government must be scrupulous in conducting research for
the common good and rigorous in rooting out fraud.”
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These disclosures are learning lessons for any HEIs aspiring to maintain research standard, besides
establishing the importance of record keeping and transparency. The incidents are not limited to an
individual’s inner pathology and cheating tendencies. It also reveals the limitation of peer review
publication process (Darsee’s and Potti’s publications), and thus demands robust, trustworthy systems,
embodied with proper supervision and alert co-authorship.

TRAGEDIES and the Role of IQAC

Temptation, rationalization, ambition, group and authority pressure, entitlement, deception,
incrementalism, embarrassment, and stupid systems (‘Tragedies’) have been identified as nine

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