The emergence of a high-profile “research sleuth” in China who is using social media to call out fake data in studies has both exposed historic failures to act on integrity concerns and highlighted a newfound willingness to take the problem seriously.
Content creator Geng Hongwei has promised to continue reviewing academic papers published by top scholars after his posts caused several prominent researchers to lose their jobs.
The PhD dropout has garnered attention way beyond the usual academic circles, amassing 2 million online followers and glowing media profiles worldwide.
Shaoxiong Brian Xu, a research integrity scholar at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, described Hongwei as “China’s first full-time, widely recognised research integrity whistleblower on social media”.
Hongwei left his programme at Beihang University last year to became a full-time content creator, initially focusing on biomedical research developments.
