XClose

UCL Research

Home
Menu

Research culture lecture: Dr Elisabeth Bik

06 July 2023, 4:00 pm–5:30 pm

Elisabeth Bik

Dr Elisabeth Bik will give a lecture on "Double Trouble: Inappropriate Image Duplications in Biomedical Publications".

Event Information

Open to

UCL staff | UCL students

Availability

Yes

Organiser

Sandra Porteous

Location

Online/in person at Lecture Theatre
33 Queen Square
London
WC1N 3BG

This event has been organised by UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and is sponsored by UCL's Research Culture programme.

About

Register now for this guest lecture from Dr Elisabeth Bik at UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology. Dr Bik will be introduced by Professor Dimitri Kullmann (Deputy Director for Translation, Queen Square Institute of Neurology). 

This hybrid event is sponsored by UCL's Research Culture programme and aligns with the Research Culture Roadmap theme of openness and integrity in our research and innovation.

Please note that this event is for UCL staff and students only. Registrations are open to attend either in person at 33 Queen Square or online on Zoom. 

Register to attend in person

Register to attend online


Abstract

Science builds upon science. Even after peer-review and publication, science papers could still contain images or other data of concern. If not addressed post-publication, papers containing incorrect or even falsified data could lead to wasted time and money spent by other researchers trying to reproduce those results. Several high-profile science misconduct cases have been described, but many more cases remain undetected.

Elisabeth Bik is an image forensics detective who left her paid job in industry to search for and report biomedical articles that contain errors or data of concern. She has done a systematic scan of 20,000 papers in 40 journals and found that about 4% of these contained inappropriately duplicated images. In her talk, she will present her work and show several types of inappropriately duplicated images and other examples of research misconduct. In addition, she will show how to report scientific papers of concern, and how journals and institutions handle such allegations.


Biography

Elisabeth Bik, PhD is a Dutch-American microbiologist who has worked for 15 years at Stanford University and 2 years in industry. Since 2019, she is a science integrity volunteer and consultant who scans biomedical literature for images or other data of concern and has reported over 6,000 scientific papers. Her work has resulted in over 900 retracted and another 900 corrected papers. For her work on exposing threats to research integrity, she received the 2021 John Maddox Prize.