Co-authoring a paper with a persona non grata

Question

Suppose Researcher A did some joint work with Researcher B. While the work was still in progress, or the manuscript was in preparation, researcher B became persona non grata in Academia, due to wrongdoing. I don't think the exact nature of wrongdoing is relevant here, but let's say it is serious, as in for example:

• faking research results (the research with A was not faked)
• severely breaching research ethics (the research with A was not affected)
• sexual misconduct towards subordinates (that Researcher A was not aware of during joint work)

What's Researcher A to do? I see four options, all of which have their ethical and practical drawbacks.

• publish the result jointly with B as planned. The ethical drawback is that it can be perceived as siding with B in the scandal/breaching a boycott, and the practical one is that Researcher A's career might suffer from association with the scandal.
• not publish at all. The practical drawback is that Researcher's A CV suffers, and the ethical drawbacks are obvious: not publishing a worthy research funded by taxpayers is a waste of their money; it may hinder further progress of the field, and, for example, in Maths, if results have been announced or communicated to the community, then codes of conduct explicitly require that the details are published soon.
• withdraw Researcher A's name. The practical drawback is as above, and the ethical drawback is that generally nobody should receive full credit for the work that was in fact joint, and even less so as a "reward" for the misconduct.
• ask/pressure Researcher B to withdraw their name. The practical concern is that Researcher B may not agree, and the ethical one is that, again, Researcher A should not get more credit than their contribution to the work, and wrongdoing should not disqualify B from getting their share of credit where it is due.

So, what is the right course of action for A, ethically and practically?

Answer 1

I expand on a comment by Buffy where this was hinted at:

It is a very different issue whether the misconduct was on the scientific level, which would cast doubt on the results, or on the social/moral level.

In the first case, it is difficult to trust the results if B is on the author list. Here, we have a serious dilemma. Probably OP might want to consider to cut their (and everybody's losses). Perhaps there is a way to publish it that makes it explicitly clear that this work has not been tainted by misconduct (editors note etc.).

To the second point:

Reiser's filesystem, Bieberbach's or Teichmüller's achievements are not devalued by their personal moral failings.

In this case, the research is done. It should be published. I do not know how important or impactful it is, but in principle, it's always a service to science and humanity, not just the respective taxpayer. Ultimately it's the OP's decision whether they are prepared to accept possible flak for their step. The research is separate from the authors behaviour. It's their detractors that would be trying to mix science and mores.

The only exception I can imagine for research to be suppressed for moral failures would be if the data were obtained in a clearly unethical way. The purpose of this is to discourage incentives for future breaking of ethical rules for obtaining it.

Answer 2

Recommend publishing in both authors true names and modify the paper to include information to make it easier to verify the results. Make the data sets available, publish all the source code, etc. Don't hold anything back.

Answer 3

In your question you considered the pros and contras of all approaches. For example, when you considered the option not publish at all, the main counter-arguments are that Researcher A does not benefit, taxpayer's money are wasted, and community does not benefit from the results. Let me discuss them in a little more details.

• Taxpayers are not benefitting from the results of the research directly. They benefit from the impact of this research: the practical outcomes, embodied in more effective tools, processes and products.
• Research community and the surrounding community of engineers, enterpreneurs, buisiness people, etc, pick up promising results and take them further towards development and impact. For this to happen, the results need to be clearly communicated, promising, and trustworthy. People are not likely to invest time and resources in results they can't trust.
• Researcher B commited an academic misconduct and compromised their reputation. The compromised reputation taints the trustworthiness of all their results, past and future. As a co-author, Researcher A might know that the results of their joint paper are not affected and trustworthy. But for the community and general public establishing the trustworthiness is not simple, and they have to rely on reputation instead. Unless Researcher A has a lot of reputational credit (i.e. they are Professor Famous), their word alone is not sufficient to wipe the negativity brought by the Researcher B being part of the team.

Perhaps, the best course of action would be not to publish the research done together with the Researcher B. Instead, Researcher A should use the skills they learnt while working on this project to obtain new results and benefit their career. Finding right people for collaboration is one of critically important skills for success in academia.

Answer 4

Publish your contributions as separate sole author papers

• note this will only be possible in some scenarios, but it is important to present this option, because it is often the best one when it is possible

Remove the content contributed by the offending co-author and publish the partial work without them (most likely in a lower impact journal). This may not be possible if your independent contributions (your ideas, analyses, and writing) do not make up a significant contribution to the literature without the content from the other author. But often the partial work is worth publishing, even if not as complete as you would like it to be. Also you might be able to take the work in a slightly different direction with a minor revision.

This solution is actually quite generous to the co-author because they are then free to publish their contribution as a separate publication, alone, as well. They can build off of your work, and additionally you get a citation. Science suffers the least in this solution. The only cost to readers is the mental cost of having to read and find the work in 2 papers rather than one. While your paper may be less impactful than the original piece, a sole author publication can also be beneficial on the CV. This solution means you get to avoid the negative consequences of the association, but you ethically aren't doing anything wrong either. If you want to be really transparent you can even add in the acknowledgements that you are grateful for conversations with X on dates Y to Z. Note if Y - Z is before the scandal is revealed, it also provides evidence that these conversations occurred before when you might be made aware of the scandal. In addition, almost no one on hiring committees looks at the acknowledgements on your papers. So your reputation would be quite safe here.

You should of course discuss this with your co-author, but they might be more likely to cooperate with this approach than some of the other options. But ethically, this is the only option (besides not publishing) where you can proceed even without your co-author's permission, as long as you don't publish their contributions. Be sure to save all emails from the collaboration, so you can prove that these were your ideas.

Answer 5

Publish under pseudonym(s)

One or both of you could use pseudonyms. As with all other options, this is a compromise, but in this case you're emphasising getting the publicly funded and/or important research out there, while avoiding further association with a person you don't want to be associated with, and not allowing them further credit, while also not tarnishing the research by association with their name. Of course it would be improper to force them to publish under a pseudonym, so it's still their choice, and if they didn't agree then it might be obvious who you are if you're continuing previous work.

Answer 6

Publish the result jointly with B as planned. There is no hesitation here. If you want ethics, here's a teaching from the Bible Matthew 22:15-21:

Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.

Did Researcher B contribute his value to the study? Yes, he did, according to what you said.

Did Researcher B commit any crime within your joint study? Faked results, etc.? No, he didn't, according to what you said.

So, the reward of having the result jointly published with you (under his real name, for god's sake) is his, isn't it?

It's not your place to judge him or to take this from him - you are not the judge, right? Not even judge should have that right. Should all your contributions and credits be deleted when you commit a crime? Does it sound like justice?

Now, to your concerns:

The ethical drawback is that it can be perceived as siding with B in the scandal/breaching a boycott, and the practical one is that Researcher A's career might suffer from association with the scandal.

OMG... this is based on a fear of being judged by a very sick society. Only very sick minded society would make these judgements.

You have to make a choice, if your decision shall be driven by real ethics, or fear of being judged by sick minded people.