A Chinese official on Thursday pledged zero tolerance on academic fraud after German science publishing house Springer retracted over 100 papers by Chinese authors in April.

"China will resolutely contain the breeding and spreading of academic fraud and deal with such misconducts seriously," Shang Yong, executive vice chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), told a press conference.

"Lessons should be drawn from scientific fraud and efforts are needed to reform the evaluation system for scientists, scientific projects and institutions for scientific research," Shang said, warning against the traditional one-size-fits-all evaluation policy.

Shang said fake peer-reviews provided by third-party agents were to blame for the retraction, while calling for enhanced efforts to monitor the process of publishing academic papers and boosting research integrity.

Springer said the withdrawal was a global issue rather than targeted against Chinese authors.

The official said the CAST would coordinate with the ministries of science and technology as well as education to keep high pressure on academic fraud.

(Source: Xinhua)

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