Fulda & Debatin: Reproducibility of Results in Medical and Biomedical Research

"Basic and advanced training for researchers should focus much more on self-reflection, openness and a culture of error acceptance."

Well, what do you say to that. Two of Germany’s most influential scientists were caught with bad science. Our heroes are Klaus-Michael Debatin and his former mentee Simone Fulda.

Fulda is currently President of the University of Kiel, prior to that she was Vice-President for Research at the Goethe University of Frankfurt. Debatin used to be Dean of the Medical Faculty and Vice-President for Medicine of the University of Ulm, as well as CEO and Medical Director of the university clinic. He and Fulda sit on the boards of the most important academic institutions and charities in Germany and abroad. Both are Fellows of the German Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina (CVs here and here). Both are Senators of the German Research Council (DFG). Both hold senior positions at the German Cancer Aid (Deutsche Krebshilfe) charity. Fulda also advises the Paul Ehrlich Institute, decides about the fellowships at Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, coordinates regional research investments of the Mercator Research Center Ruhr and the German-Israeli research cooperation of the DFG. She also used to be member of the German Science and Humanities Council (Wissenschaftsrat) and currently chairs the Research Information Committee at the Joint Science Conference, which advices the national and federal state governments.

In 2017-2018, Fulda and Debatin were members of the “Working Group “Quality in Clinical Research” of the DFG Senate Commission on Key Questions in Clinical Research”. The group published this White Paper, titled “Reproducibility of Results in Medical and Biomedical Research”, which then informed the DFG policies on research ethics and integrity. It is mostly boring inane text which finds nothing out of order and binds nobody to nothing. But this excerpt is funny, considering who issues this advice:

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