Last year the Queensland corruption commission decided to investigate 21 allegations of research fraud, by examining policies and practises at Uni Queensland Uni, Southern Queensland and QUT

In May ’19 the Crime and Corruption Commission announced an audit of “prevention measure” and how universities responded to allegations of research fraud, (CMM May 10). No universities are identified in the report now released.

Overall the finds the three universities it investigated have “satisfactory” complaints management and prevention systems.

However, there are specific recommendations on improving policies and processes dealing with peer review, conflict of interest and compliance with the national voluntary best-practice code.

And the CCC reports it has raised an allegation of corrupt conduct against an un-named decision-maker at an unidentified university regarding an internal investigation.

“The decision-maker has proceeded to attempt to cover-up the incompetence in their investigation into a researcher by stating that the researcher’s misrepresentation was “not very serious”, when it was in fact serious. This is considered corrupt conduct because the decision-maker is allegedly covering their own incompetence by lying about the seriousness of the conduct they were tasked to investigate. This allegation has been referred to the University to deal with.”