Chinese authorities are cracking down on academic fraud after an international medical journal retracted 107 Chinese-authored papers from the past five years, in the biggest case to date of fake peer reviews to endorse research.
中国当局正在打击学术欺诈，此前一份国际医学期刊撤回了中国作者在过去五年里发表的107篇论文，构成史上最大的同行评议造假案例。
Springer, publisher of the journal Tumor Biology, said the retractions were made because the peer review process — in which an independent academic recommends a paper for publication — had been “deliberately compromised by fabricated peer reviewer reports”.《肿瘤生物学》(Tumor Biology)期刊的出版商斯普林格(Springer)表示，之所以撤稿，是因为同行评议流程（由一名独立学者建议发表一篇论文）已被“伪造的同行评议报告故意破坏”。China’s ministry of science and technology said this week that the incident had “seriously harmed the international reputation of our country's scientific research and the dignity of Chinese scientists at large”. It vowed a “no tolerance” approach to academic fraud.中国科技部上周表示，这起事件“严重损害了我国科技界的国际声誉和广大科技人员的尊严”。该部誓言对学术造假“零容忍”。The government pledged to investigate the papers’ authors and may strip them of their academic roles. All grant funding to the academics involved has been halted.政府承诺对撤稿论文逐一彻查，有些涉事论文作者可能被剥夺学术职务。他们承担或正在申请经费的科研项目已被暂停。Academic publishing is the latest sector of the Chinese economy to encounter fake products, sales figures or reviews. Ecommerce has been plagued by waves of fake orders designed to improve the rankings of online sellers, while the cinema industry has been embroiled in a controversy over government attempts to censor unfavourable reviews of Chinese-made films.学术出版是中国经济中遭遇假冒的产品、销售数据或评论的最新领域。电子商务受到一波又一波虚假订单的困扰，其目的是提高在线卖家的排名，电影院线也卷入一项争议，涉及政府意图删除对国产电影的差评。China’s race to become a world leader in science and technology has led it to become the second-biggest source of academic publications globally.中国要成为世界科技领先者的努力，已经使其成为全球第二大学术发表来源。However, the pressure applied to academics to publish or perish has had adverse effects, said Zhang Yuehong, an editor of the Journal of Zhejiang University.然而，《浙江大学学报》的张月红总编表示，学者们受到的发表不了论文就不能晋升的压力，产生了不利影响。In recent years, China has seen a surge in academic scandals in medicine and biology. Ms Zhang, who pioneered anti-plagiarism software in scientific publishing, called biotechnology a “disaster area”.近年来，中国在医学和生物学领域爆出的学术丑闻激增。在科学出版工作中率先采用反剽窃软件的张月红表示，生物技术领域尤其是一个“重灾区”。Last year, the food and drug regulator found that 81 per cent of applications for drug approvals were withdrawn after the pharmaceutical companies were asked to check their clinical data.去年，食品和药物监管机构发现，81%的药物审批申请在制药公司被要求核查其临床数据后被撤回。The US, which had led the world in academic retractions over the past three decades, was overtaken by China in 2009, according to a paper by Michael Grieneisen and Minghua Zhang at the University of California, Davis.根据加利福尼亚大学戴维斯分校(University of California, Davis)的迈克尔·格列内森(Michael Grieneisen)和张明华合写的一篇论文，美国曾经在30年期间一直在学术撤稿方面“领衔”世界，但在2009年被中国超越。China and the US continued to have high numbers of retractions since 2010, but China’s rate was roughly the global average when taking into consideration the volume of papers produced, said Harry Xia, president of the Alliance for Scientific Editing in China.中国英文科技论文编辑联盟(ASEC)理事长夏华向(Harry Xia)表示，自2010年以来，中国和美国的撤稿数量都继续偏高，但考虑到论文的绝对数量，中国的撤稿率与全球平均水平大致相符。The difference was that Chinese retractions were more likely to be associated with academic misconduct, Mr Xia added. China leads the world for articles retracted due to fake peer review, according to data from Retraction Watch, an NGO that tracks academic retractions.夏华向补充说，不同点在于，中国的撤稿更有可能涉及学术不端行为。追踪学术撤稿的非政府组织“撤稿观察”(Retraction Watch)的数据显示，就同行评议造假导致论文被撤稿而言，中国领先世界。In 2015, the British Medical Journal’s BioMed Central retracted 43 papers on suspicion of fake peer reviews, of which 41 were by Chinese authors.2015年，《英国医学期刊》的出版商BioMed Central以涉嫌同行评议造假为由，撤回了43篇论文，其中41篇出自中国作者之手。In addition, the rise of scientific editing companies has led to researchers paying not only for proofreading or checking English translations, but for scientific scrutiny and even additional data, according to a paper by Karen Kaplan, an editor at the journal Nature.
此外，根据科学刊物《自然》(Nature)的编辑之一卡伦·卡普兰(Karen Kaplan)发表的一篇论文，科学编辑公司的兴起导致研究人员不仅花钱请人校对或检查英文翻译，而且请人进行专业审议，甚至补充数据。The government-backed National Natural Science Foundation of China said that 28 of 117 Chinese papers retracted by major international publishers from 2015-16 had been “touched up” by companies, with some being “bought from and written by others”.中国政府支持的国家自然科学基金委员会(NSFC)表示，2015-16年期间被主要国际出版社撤回的117篇中国论文中，有28篇曾经过中介公司润色，甚至有一些是花钱请人代写的。“One possible reason for the higher rate [in China] is the large bonuses paid to researchers who publish in prestigious journals,” said Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch.“中国撤稿率较高的一个原因可能是在知名期刊发表论文的研究人员能获得大笔奖金，”撤稿观察联合创始人伊万·奥朗斯基(Ivan Oransky)表示。Not only university researchers but also practising doctors in China are required to publish in international journals to get promoted.在中国，不仅是高校研究人员，就连执业的医生都要在国际期刊上发表论文，才能获得晋升。“China needs to let scientific research calm down. The research world here is too fickle and impatient,” said Ms Zhang.“中国需要让科学研究平静下来。这里的研究界太浮躁和缺乏耐心了，”张月红表示。