Personal view: The best among bad alternatives

A fortnight ago, Peter Chen announced his resignation from the executive board of ETH Zurich, a move triggered by a case of fraud that took place in 2000 in a research group he headed.

This week Chen issued a personal statement describing the factors he weighed in a complicated situation, which he says ultimately led to the, “best among bad alternatives” – his resignation as Vice-President for Research and Corporate Relations in the interest of the Institute. His statement follows.

Peter Chen

The details of the data falsification affair are not the primary focus in this letter, but rather the way that we respond to it. The resignation was the best among bad options. There is a chain of logic which produced the result. Among the branching points in a decision tree, there were some decisions that we made, or to which we contributed, and some which were made for us by events or persons outside of our control.

Nevertheless, there had always been the possibility that the data falsification affair could lead to my resignation. It was one among many possible results. As I have said nothing directly to the press up until now, I would like to lead you through the logic myself.

First of all, it is important to realise that there never was a realistic option to avoid disclosure, and for three reasons: a cover-up would be unethical; a cover-up would make me and the ETH vulnerable to blackmail; and a cover-up, even with best efforts, would fail anyway.

I became convinced in December 2008 that the allyl radical data were not only false, but falsified. Not only did I submit the objective evidence to the President with a request for a formal Board of Inquiry, but I also submitted to the journal shortly thereafter a retraction of the 2000 allyl paper, together with a new manuscript with the data we and collaborators measured between March 2007 and October 2008.

These new data agreed with the measurements reported by external groups to us in February 2007; the new data were significantly different from those in the 2000 report, and they led to conclusions different from those in the original paper. I should add that previous attempts by my former Habilitand starting in 2003, to address inconsistencies by new experiments were inconclusive because the resolution of his experiment was insufficient. The work is inherently difficult work, taking years to (re)build and execute the experiment, but we finally produced a definitive dataset by the end of 2008.

Publication of the retraction and correction were then mandatory. There is no other ethically acceptable option once we possessed data showing that our previous work was wrong. The retraction and the new paper appeared in the journal in July 2009. While the retraction is entirely neutral in its wording, a scientist who compares the new paper with the old paper would recognise immediately that the differences exceed what could be attributed reasonably to innocent causes.

Colleagues had already begun to ask me and my co-workers to explain the discrepancies. There was a small group of co-workers who knew that we had discovered fraud, and it bordered on miraculous that the confidentiality held until the Board of Inquiry concluded its work late in the summer of 2009. It was only a matter of time, and time meaning weeks, not months, before the affair would blow up. Given that a disclosure driven from outside would be much worse than a disclosure by the ETH itself, the question of disclosure reduces to “when” and “how,” but not “whether.”

Secondly, the Schulleitung had made an official decision to include in the press release a link to the full text of the Board of Inquiry’s report. I should mention here I have been recused from the Schulleitung’s deliberations and decisions in this matter since January 2009 when I placed the request for the Board of Inquiry. One may in fact debate whether a simultaneous release of the report with the press release would have mitigated the circumstances sufficiently to prevent my resignation, but the point was rendered wholly moot when legal counsel for the former doctoral student announced an injunction immediately prior to the release of the press statement. An official release of the report, or its contents, could negatively impact the legal proceedings which are only now beginning.

The process by which consequences for the data falsification are decided and implemented is being challenged. I am personally convinced that the process has been thorough and fair, and that the interests of all parties have been accommodated as required by law, but this judgment will be made by the Bundesverwaltungsgericht, [Federal Court] not by me. It was therefore necessary to adjust the press release of 21 September 2009. The link to the report was removed, and the President stated that the culprit could not be identified with legal certainty. As I consented to the disclosure of my name, I was the only party identified in the press release.

Lastly, a press release without the Board of Inquiry’s report, and without an assignment of guilt left me no better alternative than resignation from the post of Vice-President. The Vice-President of Research and Corporate Relations is in charge of strategic direction and quality assurance in research at the ETH. He distributes internal research funds. He oversees the Ethics Commission. He must sign, for example, the authorisations for experiments involving human subjects. He has been delegated the authority to negotiate and sign contracts in the name of the ETH with private industry, and in some cases, agencies of foreign governments. He represents the ETH in numerous commissions and foundations, where supporters and donors are sought. He is one of the spokespersons for political and societal groups.

All of these functions are compromised when there is a suspicion that I have committed scientific fraud. If I had not stepped down immediately, not only would my resignation have been loudly and justifiably demanded, but the credibility of the ETH and its leadership would have been severely damaged.

As I mentioned above, one may debate whether the Board of Inquiry sufficiently exonerates me for exercise of any office, including my professorship, but the timescales for the debate and the present disclosure are incommensurate. This debate starts now and will conclude later. The preservation of the ETH’s credibility as an institution whose standards are high and uncompromising required an immediate step.

There is nevertheless damage to the institution, but it is much less than it could have been. I have been injured, personally and professionally. Other parties have also been injured. I deeply regret the damage and injury. I feel a combination of anger, disappointment, frustration and sadness. I doubt the perpetrator of the data falsification a decade ago imagined how widely and indiscriminately the injury would fall. In any case, resignation from the Vice-Presidency gave the ETH as much protection as could be achieved under the circumstances. It was the best among bad alternatives.

Peter Chen

4 October 2009