Anyone with experience of the fall-out of a misconduct investigation and its effect on their career

[WyclefJohn]

Hi, I'm looking for some advice from other academics. I was a lecturer on a short term contract when I noticed one of the senior academics (Reader) had plagiarised two books. I spoke in confidence to a Professor (the head of the Department), and after they told the Reader I was accusing them of plagiarism, I was forced to either drop the complaint or go through with it. The Department ordered a crappy investigation, and basically agreed with the Reader that it was fine to copy and paste sections from other people's books without citing their work.

Surprise, surprise, my contract was then ended by the Head of Department. Now, in the fall out, I don't know what I can say about my previous job, and I know that as people know people in my field, I feel incredibly hard done by, and still feel quite angry about it? In the meanwhile, I am doing some consulting work that keeps me busy.

Has anyone else experienced similar, and how they went about moving on in their career?

My experience of academic misconduct at the staff level isn't that great, but any time there's been a hint of plagiarism or borrowing other people's grant ideas, it's all just been made to go away and not taken very seriously, especially if it's dealt with internally rather than, say, a journal editor recalling a paper.

On that basis, I wouldn't seek anything else from that institution. I'd just apply for other jobs, perhaps with a friendly referee from there but not that Reader or anyone involved, anyway.

Perhaps write it up anonymously for the Guardian HE pages if you want an outlet for your frustration.

Don't worry it will ruin things in your 'field', my experience is fields are bigger than you think, and not all the people like the other people in their field anyway. If the plagiarism is blatant, then gossip will circulate.

It seems a bit mean to say 'move on' but I don't think there's anything you can do except do that.

Also, new employers may not really question why you left- short term contracts are unfortunately very common in the early stages of a career. I wouldn't go into it at interview, I'd just put down referees who are going to best represent you, and don't look back.

Yes. You can just say that it was a fixed term contract and you left at the end of the contract. That's so completely standard that no one will question further.

Thanks, I just feel so demoralised by something like this. I would like to think that you go into academia, and there are certain shared ethical values. I had thought plagiarism was such a no-no, the university would be horrified by it, especially something as egregious as I saw.

I think I'm much more cynical than you. I'd assume the the university wouldn't want to do anything that might compromise their ref submission. Given that the ref panel is unlikely to pick up the plagiarism, they're going to do what they can to ensure that their reader is protected and can submit the paper in their ref return.

I'm pretty shocked it was dealt with internally (as in within the dept), tbh. My current institution automatically requires any potential research misconduct to be kicked up to central management, and a previous institution had a similar requirement for a faculty investigation. There have been some very high-profile cases of research misconduct in my field and related sciences over the last few years, and it has made a lot of universities very wary of being seen as complicit.

OP - not everywhere is as bad as the dept you left, honest! Here's hoping you end up in a more ethical dept next time