The Einstein Foundation Berlin awards €500,000 prize to advance research quality
The Einstein Foundation Berlin honors the Dutch microbiologist Elisabeth Bik, the platform PubPeer, and the initiative PixelQuality by Christopher Schmied and Helena Jambor with the Einstein Foundation Award for Promoting Quality in Research 2024.
The recipient of this year’s Individual Award, Elisabeth Bik, is a microbiologist, science whistleblower, and independent consultant for scientific integrity. Bik has uncovered the use of fraudulent or erroneous data for more than 7,600 scientific papers and has shed light on the practice of selling authorship for fabricated studies. This year’s Institutional Award recognizes the relevance of PubPeer, a platform for rapid post-publication review and discussion of published scientific data. PubPeer’s impact on the scientific community has been significant: it has helped identify flaws in the work of eminent scientists, combatted fraud, and fostered the emergence of an international, multidisciplinary community of research integrity experts. The 2024 Early Career Award goes to the project PixelQuality by Christopher Schmied and Helena Jambor, which aims to improve reproducibility in life sciences by establishing rigorous guidelines for research image publication and preparing for AI‘s role in their generation and analysis.
The €500,000 Einstein Foundation Award for Promoting Quality in Research honors researchers and institutions whose work helps to fundamentally advance the quality and robustness of research findings. The award is bestowed jointly with the QUEST Center for Responsible Research, Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) at Charité. “The Einstein Foundation Award seeks to amplify the importance of quality and accountability in research, particularly as science plays a critical role in addressing global challenges,” explains Martin Rennert, Chair of the Einstein Foundation’s Executive Board. “By honoring those who lead the way in improving research culture and practice, we promote a future where scientific findings are not only more robust but also more relevant for society.”
The award is presented in three categories to individual researchers, institutions, and early career researchers. Awardees are selected by a prestigious international jury of researchers from various disciplines. “The difficult choices that the jury faced in picking just three awardees from a very distinguished pool of contenders underscores the commitment of so many to fostering integrity in research and trustworthy science,” says jury president Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, which partners with the Einstein Foundation Berlin on the award.
“The Einstein Foundation addresses a crucial gap by incentivizing reliable and transparent research practices that lead to robust solutions. We are excited to celebrate the dedicated activists who have championed this cause and are finally receiving the recognition they deserve,” says Ulrich Dirnagl, Founding Director of the QUEST Center at BIH and Award Secretary. “Together with our Early Career Award winner, they are driving essential change toward a responsible research culture.”
Jury member Mai Har Sham, Professor of Biomedical Sciences at the Chinese University of Hong Kong says: “Elisabeth Bik’s work in uncovering manipulated images, fraudulent research data and publications has created enormous impact all over the world. Her work has led to heightened awareness of questionable research practices and generated wide-spread attention to responsible conduct of research in the scientific community.”
Dorothy Bishop, Emeritus Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology at the University of Oxford and nominator of the PubPeer Foundation explains: “PubPeer has transformed the way research is communicated. It offers a straightforward way to add commentary to published articles that was previously not available, providing an important line of defence against scientific fraud.”
Helena B. Nader, President of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and member of the award jury says: “Research images are the proof of scientific findings, not just visuals. PixelQuality has set new standards for their reproducibility and transparency. This award will help further strengthen these efforts and drive change in the field.”
The award is funded by the Wübben Stiftung Wissenschaft. Additional resources are made available by the State of Berlin. The publisher Nature Portfolio, the Public Library of Science, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Berlin University Alliance, the Max Planck Society and the Max Planck Foundation are supporting the Einstein Foundation Berlin and the BIH QUEST Center for Responsible Research at Charité in promoting and implementing the award.
For more information on the winners and finalists of the Early Career Award and to download photos, please visit the press section of our website: https://www.einsteinfoundation.de/en/media/press-releases/2024/18112024-09/24
The deadline for international nominations and applications for the Einstein Foundation Award 2025 will be published in January 2025 at https://award.einsteinfoundation.de/.
The Einstein Foundation Berlin is an independent, not-for-profit, science-led organization established as a foundation under civil law in 2009. It promotes international cutting-edge science and research across disciplines and institutions in and for Berlin. To date, it has funded more than 240 researchers, including three Nobel laureates, over 70 projects, and eight Einstein Centers.
Weitere Informationen:
https://www.einsteinfoundation.de/en/media/press-releases/2024/18112024-09/24
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