China blacklists 13 academics for fraud -report

BEIJING, Aug 3 (Reuters) China has blacklisted 13 academics for falsifying scientific data, fabricating applications and plagiarism, state media said today, as the government tries to foster innovation in a fraud-ridden climate.

The 13 were singled out by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Xinhua news agency said, neither naming them nor detailing their punishments.

Two professors, one at Wuhan University and the other at the Civil Aviation University of China, were also ''criticised''and suspended from receiving research funding for three years, it added.

''As the country has been advocating innovation, a series of high-profile scientific scandals at China's top universities last year raised public concern over the supervision of academic research,'' the report said.

In 2006, Chen Jin, a US-educated dean at Shanghai's elite Jiaotong University, was sacked for faking chip research.

Chen's sacking followed the release of an open letter from a group of 120 Chinese scientists working in the United States that urged tighter procedures for handling scientific misconduct in China and said there were increased claims of such fraud.

Chen's fall from grace was a shock to a scientific community winning increasing government funding and attention as China pushes to strengthen domestic innovation and research.

President Hu Jintao, an engineer by training, has been quoted as saying China must pour more resources into scientific breakthroughs or risk being left a minor player in global technological advances.

REUTERS SYU KN1554