'Disgraceful' researchers chastise their peers

More than half of science and technology researchers polled in a recent survey said they believe their peers engaged in "disgraceful behavior", including plagiarism, according to the latest study by the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST).

Some 55.5 percent of researchers reported they had witnessed disgraceful behavior in academia at least once, Wang Chunfa, a senior official of CAST, told a press meeting in Beijing on Friday. "Such behavior includes plagiarism, falsifying or fabricating academic achievement by using research from other sources," he said.

The CAST finding was based on 30,078 questionnaires sent out under 209 pilot studies nationwide in the second half of 2008. More than 43 percent of researchers polled also said plagiarism in the country's academia was "very serious".