Study of misconduct suggests first author should be guarantor for a paper’s accuracy

Researchers analysing past scientific misconduct investigations have recommended that the first author should be held accountable for the integrity of all the work in a research paper.

Katrin Hussinger and Maikel Pellens from KU Leuven in Belgium showed that in cases investigated by the US Office of Research Integrity (ORI), first authors were more likely to have committed misconduct than their co-authors, particularly those in the middle of the author list. They reason that responsibility for guaranteeing scientific accuracy should, therefore, lie with them.