For decades, academic institutions have struggled with how to prevent researchers who have committed misconduct from securing jobs at new universities while hiding the bad behaviour. A proposal published today in the journal Science1 offers a solution, at least in the United States: creating a national database of people found guilty of data fabrication, workplace harassment and more, that would be accessed by research institutions before making new hires. Michael Lauer, one of the proposal's authors, says that bad actors frequently evade accountability by resigning during an ongoing investigation at their university, or by agreeing to leave and sign a non-disparagement agreement with their institution, such that neither party can speak publicly about the incident. This potentially enables a person to get hired by another university, which might not be aware of the previous misconduct, says Lauer, who for about ten years ran the extramural research programme at the US National...
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