The story of Cambridge professor Jason Arday’s academic scandal seems to have no end. First there were allegations of plagiarism, then accusations of dodgy data-gathering, not to mention other self-contradicting exaggerations about his academic achievements. Liverpool John Moores University says it conducted an investigation into the allegations against Arday and cleared him; however, it’s clear that dozens of passages in his work are verbatim copies of text by Brunel University’s Paula Zwozdiak-Myers.

But in British academia, Arday is just the tip of the iceberg. The media organisation Retraction Watch keeps an eye on which papers are corrected or retracted, often due to unrepeatable results, investigations by universities or journals, data fabrication, or outright plagiarism. They flagged the Arday affair too, saying that the Times Higher Education supplement dropped its original story due to legal pressures. Retraction........

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