China has gained an unexpected ally in its struggle with rampant scientific misconduct: an independent video blogger who shines a light on problematic papers for millions of followers.
Since April, Geng Hongwei, a former biomedical Ph.D. student at Beihang University, has been uncovering apparent use of duplicated images and questionable data in papers authored by prominent scientists at some of China’s premier universities. Problems he has identified in nine papers published in Springer Nature journals have triggered numerous official investigations and the dismissal of several high-ranking academics.
Observers say the swift response to Geng’s findings as well as the extensive local media coverage of the unfolding scandals indicate an unusual level of official tolerance, if not approval.
“This case is a landmark event,” says Shaoxiong Brian Xu, a research integrity scholar at Huanggang Normal University. “It is likely the first time a grassroots whistleblower utilizing social media has achieved widespread, positive coverage in Chinese state media.”
China’s scientific misconduct problem is no secret. The number of scientific papers from the country has increased over the past 2 decades, as has the quality of those publications, says Yi Rao, a neuroscientist at Peking University. At the same time, not only the number, but also the proportion of papers containing fabrications has increased, he adds, “[setting] historical records that no one from China is proud of.” Despite efforts at the national level and by individuals, even well-known cases of misconduct have gone unpunished, he says.
Geng more or less stumbled into his role as a misconduct sleuth. As a graduate student, he started the video blogging channel “Classmate Geng Tells Stories.” Aimed at fellow graduate students, the videos covered research developments, particularly in biomedicine; anecdotes about life in the lab; and comments on academic misconduct. In May 2025, unhappy with his prospects for a research career, he quit his Ph.D. studies and began vlogging full time.
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Geng’s occasional videos on misconduct attracted further tips, and he realized his 3 million followers on the video platforms Bilibili and Douyin gave him visibility beyond that of the typical whistleblower. In an interview with Science, he said he decided to target misconduct by high-profile scientists because they receive generous funding and should be held accountable. He watched for online posts flagging questionable images and data and started scouring publicly accessible raw data, looking for anomalies. For example, in a study where researchers had recorded the weight of mice, Geng spotted an unusual preponderance of fives instead of the random frequencies of digits that would be expected. “This clearly wasn’t the kind of data normally generated in a laboratory,” Geng says.
Over the past 2 months, Geng has presented evidence of image and/or data manipulation in nine biomedical papers involving prominent Chinese scientists. All were published in Springer Nature journals, which Geng says are favored by top Chinese scientists, and which make more raw data available, allowing for greater scrutiny. (In an email to Science, Erika Pastrana, Vice President of Nature Research and Reviews Journals, wrote, “We are rigorously investigating the concerns that have been raised, which at this stage remain allegations under assessment.”)
Most of the institutions involved launched investigations. Tongji University, Nankai University, and Sun Yat-sen University have already dismissed or disciplined the bench-level researchers judged responsible for the misconduct and have demoted or dismissed senior scientists, including dean-level scholars, for lax oversight.
The quick investigations and disciplinary actions suggest authorities recognize that research integrity “has become closely linked to China’s international scientific reputation and its ambition to become a global scientific leader,” says Futao Huang, a higher education scholar at Hiroshima University in Japan. The responses contrast with past practice. In 2021, for instance, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology probed allegations of image manipulation in more than 60 papers co-authored by Cao Xuetao, then-president of Nankai. The ministry concluded there was no evidence of fraud despite finding “misused images in many papers, reflecting a lack of rigorous laboratory management,” and Cao faced only minor sanctions.
Geng says feedback he has received from the general public and even from limited contacts with government officials is generally supportive. He believes the dozens of tips he gets from younger researchers indicates “very clear dissatisfaction” with current research practices. Churning out flawed papers is “very detrimental to the development of scientific research in this country,” he says. He told Science he is now looking into 20 or so suspicious publications.
One way to reduce data misuse, he says, would be to have other members of a research team independently replicate key experiments. “If I know that someone will replicate [the experiment], I wouldn’t dare to fabricate data,” he says.
China’s reliance on a blogger like Geng to expose misconduct reveals a breakdown in institutional oversight, Xu says. In a recent paper, he and his colleagues found only 52.8% of 579 Chinese universities maintained academic integrity web pages, and just 16.8% released annual research integrity reports, as required by the Ministry of Education.
Incentive structures contribute to the misconduct problem, Huang says: Evaluations of faculty and students should rely less on publication counts and journal prestige and more on research originality, reproducibility, and long-term scientific value. Most agree that those found guilty of misconduct should also face greater repercussions. As Rao says, “There should be mechanisms with real teeth and officials with a true sense of responsibility to properly and fairly investigate research misconduct and take proper disciplinary actions.”
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