Figure 2. Effect of Office of Research Integrity misconduct findings on research productivity.
The productivity of principal investigators found to have committed misconduct by the ORI was evaluated by a PubMed search by author name and institution for 3-year (A and B) and 6-year (C and D) intervals prior to and following the release of the ORI report, excluding the actual year of the ORI report. Represented are authors with at least one publication in the 3- or 6-year intervals before the ORI report which in both cases totaled 44. (A and C) Percent change in publications following the ORI report. Most of these authors experienced a large negative change, although some experienced a positive change, primarily those who did not falsify or fabricate data. (B and D) Absolute number of publications during 3-year (B) and 6-year (D) intervals before and after the ORI report. Each dot represents a single investigator before and after the ORI report. Dotted line indicates the median before the ORI report; in both cases the median was zero after the ORI report. (E) Productivity of PIs before and after ORI findings of misconduct was analyzed using the Web of Knowledge Author Search. This includes all publications by that author before the ORI finding compared to the interval between the ORI finding and 2012, excluding the actual year of the ORI report.