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Letter of the president
There was a time when the scientific competition stimulated the creativity by allowing a beneficial interaction and an honest exchange among researchers.
This positive competition has changed, year after year, into a real wild competition, putting in danger the first mission of the medical and scientific research.
Although most of the researchers still remain attached to the scientific deontology and are honest individuals, more and more frequently now, we observe, by greediness of recognition and fame, a lack of integrity moving into scientific misconducts.
It is inconceivable that researchers, whose essential goal is to serve Science and Citizens, can deliberately and with complete impunity, invent, falsify and hide results, plagiarize, encroach and appropriate work from others. It is even more inconceivable that these researchers may find protection and support from the National Research Institutions which host them and which therefore become their accomplices.
For several years, countries of the whole world have been interested in raising and trying to fight these problems.
In France, only after significant cases of scientific misconducts revealed by the press, committees have been created to handle this kind of problems. Unfortunately these committees being titghly linked to their respective administrations are not able, in complete independance, to take decisions which might not be in agreement with their Director.
Since the advent of the internet, a worldwide diffusion of scientific misconduct has become possible. A load of information that was previously held in secrecy by Institutions or researchers can now be made public. We hope that the authors of these acts of scientific misconduct will be reluctant to read about their unacceptable behavior on the Web and that they will be forced to respect the basic rules of intellectual property which have permitted, in the past, a worldwide diffusion of results, thereby leading to significant progress and better living conditions for the mankind.
We do hope that our action will help getting back the excellent level of communication that many of us have appreciated for many years.
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