Dr. Hickory submits a grant application to a federal funding agency. When he receives the summary statement review of the grant application, he finds that it has been criticized on several grounds and that it has received a score which will prevent the application from being funded. He decides to do more experiments to generate preliminary information and indefinitely postpones resubmitting the grant application. Approximately 18 months later, Dr Hickory is asked to serve as an ad hoc reviewer for a research grant submitted to a private foundation. The topical area of the grant is closely aligned with Dr. Hickory's area of expertise. It turns out that the principal investigator of this application, Dr. Poplar, was a member of the panel that previously reviewed Hickory's above-referenced grant. In reading the introductory section of the grant application, Dr. Hickory realizes that the structure and content of this section are strikingly similar to his previously submitted unfunded grant application. In fact, there are several areas of the introduction where the wording is virtually identical to his initial grant application. Moreover, several of the experiments proposed in the application to the private foundation is quite similar (but not identical) to the ones he had previously proposed.

 

Question:

Dr. Hickory wonders what he can and should do about this situation. He comes to you for advice. What advice do you give him?


http://research-ethics.org/topics/research-misconduct/#discussion

Last modified: Tuesday, 12 March 2019, 2:04 PM