o
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CLOSEOUT FOR M95030009
This case came to OIG on February 21, 1995.
, a program officer in the Division of ,
wat
that she had received a telephone call from
f the Department of
(the complainant), who rep r
complainant stated that Drs. -(Subject - -
v (Subject #2) of the
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a suspected intellectual theft and
violation of the integrity of confidential peer review.
subjects) had published an article1 that was extraordinarily
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#1) and &
The
(the
similar to a proposal that the complainant and two collaborators
had submitted to NSF.~ The complainant expressed concern that NSF
had supplied one of the subjects with his proposal for confidential
merit review and that the subjects had misappropriated the ideas in
it.
OIG determined that neither subject reviewed the proposal and,
furthermore, that no one from the subjectsr university reviewed the
proposal. In addition, none of the senior subject's recent
collaborators (as listed on his latest NSF proposal) reviewed the
proposal at issue.
OIG consulted two knowledgeable scientists, both of whom
examined the proposal, the article, and the complainant's letter to
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OIG. Both concluded that, although there were similarities between
the proposal and the article, these similarities in no way
suggested that the article was derived from the proposal. Both
scientists stated that the subjects and the complainant were
pursuing a familiar analytic strategy in their area of research and
that it was not surprising that they would develop similar
equations and related lines of argument.
OIG concluded that there was no evidence of intellectual theft
I he article is entitled
.I1 It was publis
''The proposal was entitled m
page 1 of 2 M95-09
or violation of the integrity of the confidential merit review
process. This inquiry is closed and no further action will be
taken on this case.
page 2 of 2
Intellectual Theft
Published by the National Science Foundation, Office of Inspector General on 1995-09-22.
Below is a raw (and likely hideous) rendition of the original report. (PDF)