On October 21, 2010, the Chair of the Expert Panel on Research Integrity (The Council of Canadian Academies), Dr. Paul Davenport, President Emeritus of the University of Western Ontario released the Report “HONESTY, ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRUST: FOSTERING RESEARCH INTEGRITY IN CANADA”.
The Report became a legal instrument that made all officials in Canadian universities free from any ACCOUNTABILITY.
They are accountable only to themselves; universities might or might not investigate their own corruption, fraud, etc. In the past, they never found themselves guilty: every crime was covered up. Yet, they ARE guilty; and on November 11, 2010, I sent my letter to Dr. Davenport:
Research integrity in Canada
Dear Professor Davenport,
In the last couple of years there were some indications that a central Canadian agency with power to investigate allegations of research misconduct outside university walls might be established. Instead, the new agency recommended by the report of The Expert Panel on Research Integrity will serve university administrators. There was a great irony in calling the proposed agency a “Canadian compromise”.
The report – “Honesty, Accountability and Trust: Fostering Research Integrity in Canada” – is a product of criminal manipulation by the Canadian academic establishment intended to continue the reign of lawlessness in the academia. As I absolutely clearly see it, Canada is preparing an agency that will blur the rules and multiply the theoretical outcomes to give university administration now total freedom in making arbitrary decisions. The report is saturated with terms intended to be interpreted arbitrarily. The future procedures of the agency will be mired in the infantility of the “non-adversarial approach”. The standards will be drastically degraded and science turned into a play.
It is well known that most of the complaints are always about plagiarism and falsification of the fact of authorship. While this is often perpetrated by the senior academic staff and PhD supervisors, these perpetrators are practically never punished by the administration. Quite cunningly, but of course betraying the intention to maintain the silence about these cases, the report recommends publication of only the cases of persons found guilty. Yet, there are real victims here who desperately need external investigative procedure and the acknowledgement that such cases do exist.
Here is, briefly, the investigative procedure that my case went through. Two decades ago, I became a victim of unprecedented fraud in the University of Toronto when my PhD program was fraudulently terminated and then, my unpublished research in cell biology and the fundamental discoveries that I made during the five years were stolen/plagiarised by my former supervisor, Dr. Ellen Larsen, and others.
I found her three plagiarised papers only years later. After complaining and receiving a letter from the Department denying plagiarism (despite absolutely incontrovertible evidence of it in the documents written by the perpetrator herself), I made a complaint to the NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, a member of the Tri-Council, the governmental body overseeing the research integrity). Following this complaint, University of Toronto conducted a completely fraudulent investigation that found Larsen not guilty. The investigation was conducted by one man, D. Dewees, who is a lawyer and who could not understand the papers in question. I could not talk to a competent person: there was no investigating panel. Moreover, as a lawyer, D. Dewees quite consciously falsified the applicable law and the academic rules. He was unable and unwilling to conduct proper investigation of facts also. I immediately complained to the Vice-Provost of the university that the investigation was not conducted by a panel of experts. My complaint was disregarded.
Next, I received from the NSERC just two lines in which: a) I was blamed for refusing to sign a paper written by Larsen with her name as the second author, and b) NSERC concluded that Larsen “behaved in a reasonable manner”. These last words were not explained, but in fact they stood for Lasen’s later publishing the same paper without my name and claiming my ideas, discoveries and “hundreds” of experiments done by me during five years, as her own.
NSERC approved the university investigation. I later learned that NSERC does not actually investigate any cases, however, it was its duty to make sure that a university investigation was conducted by a panel of experts. I complained to NSERC President, T. Brzustowski. He informed me that he read the documents of the case and found no violations of the “policies in effect at the time”. He wrote to me that NSERC would never do a fraud. In fact, Brzustowski covered up the fraud of University of Toronto and the fraud of the NSERC.
Canadian academia is ruled by a criminal organization that would rather provoke the complainant to violence than find wrongdoing within the university administration. Prof. V. Fabrikant complained of corruption in Concordia University for years. University investigations denied his allegations. He then shot four of his colleagues. The shooting prompted an external investigation that found his allegations of corruption true, and found that two Concordia University investigations were “misleading”, “superficial”, “not based on a proper inquiry”, “clearly and seriously deficient” and “inadequate”.
This pattern of covering up fraud, corruption and plagiarism in Canadian academy is well known and it is continuing. Not long ago, Journal of Canadian Medical Association published a paper “Call for arm’s-length national research integrity agency” (http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/176/6/749). It starts thus: “It’s the classic Canadian response to a problem like scientific misconduct, says Toronto physician–scientist Dr. Paul Pencharz. “Deny, deny, deny. Sweep it under the carpet.” Next, the editorial titled “Research misconduct? What misconduct?”, in the same journal (http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/176/7/905), asked: “Why has Canada lagged so far behind its Western counterparts in establishing comprehensive mechanisms and processes to deal with scientific misconduct?” and it said: “Let’s not wait for the next scandal.”
Obviously, the criminals in academia are waiting for the next scandal. They are, for the last 24 years provoking me beyond human endurance. Every answer that I received contained a blatant and humiliating fraud, each time rising to the level of mental torture.
The decision to create a new research integrity agency without a mandate to investigate complaints against universities is nothing but a plot to cover up the past crimes (in particular, the monstrous fraud of the University of Toronto and the NSERC) and allow the criminal activity in Canadian academia to continue indefinitely.
My conclusions:
1. More than often, fraud and other misconduct are covered up by university administration.
2. Currently, only the university administration has power to investigate allegations of research misconduct, and that would not be changed by creating the new Canadian Council for Research Integrity.
3. NSERC is in such relationships with university administration that make their policy making and disciplinary functions a complete profanation of justice. It would be interesting to know if NSERC ever made a disciplinary decision against a university administration. Probably never, despite the fact that university administration is covering up research misconduct.
4. There is an urgent need to establish a central agency having full investigatory powers and composed of scientists who have no ties to the establishment. Part of the panel must always be chosen from the scientific community in a manner a court jury is chosen: corruption and fear existed for too long and penetrated too deep.
5. The records of all cases must be made available to the public.
In the present situation I am losing all hope of returning my research under my name. The fraud of Ellen Larsen is continuing, the plagiarised papers published by her remain in the journals, the scientific record remains falsified. The only official investigation that was ever conducted was done by one dishonest lawyer, a Vice-Dean, who could not understand the papers, but was appointed to do the job by the University of Toronto. Since then, the criminals are trying to prevent any inquiry into this affair; they prohibit anyone else to look at the plagiarised papers (they tried to do this in court also). Canadian criminal mafia in academia defends the present rules that give universities a sole right to “investigate” their own fraud. That must be stopped.
This is how my scientific abilities and achievements were characterised when I was a PhD student:
“The theoretical published work shows extreme originality..”, “..he has been invited to international conferences to discuss this work..”, “..outlined an entirely novel approach..”, “This combination of technical and theoretical skill is rare.”, “..a tireless worker..”, “..capacity to read and think and synthesize information for weeks at a time.”, “His selection of problems and approach to them show a clarity of thinking and an appreciation for elegant work which make his contributions original.”, “..inquisitive mind..”, “.. great technical skill and perseverance..”, “..his contributions.. will continue to be above ordinary.”, “His devotion to ideas and the sacrifices he has made.. make it clear that he is a scholar by nature..”, “We estimate he is of first-class calibre.. our Departmental Graduate Committee ranked him 1st of 7 applicants for [the highest scholarship in Canada] awards. He has already proven himself as an independent researcher..”, “Mr. Pyshnov’s demonstrated creativity in conceiving of this novel approach plus his superb technical skills uniquely qualify him to carry out these studies of far reaching significance.”, “..a man of proven scholarly attainments..”, “..a very creative scientist..”
Yet, after five years, I was thrown to the street and the University of Toronto declared that my research was “salvaged” (sic!) by Ellen Larsen.
I must return my research and discoveries under my name. This is the bottom line.
You can see all the materials and the evidence referred to above in over 50 documents posted on my web site http://www.universitytorontofraud.com
I am asking you to take all available steps to end the rule of criminals in Canadian academia. It must be done now.
Sincerely yours,
Michael Pyshnov
On November 11, 2010, I received this letter from Dr. Davenport:
Dear Mr. Pyshnov,
Thank you for writing me with your views on academic integrity in Canadian universities.
While I am not able to comment on the particular cases to which you refer, I can respond to your characterization of our Report. Our panel, after review of the extensive literature on research integrity and after much deliberation, came to the conclusion that a positive approach to research integrity, based on education and open discussion, is essential. The CCRI was conceived in that spirit, and our panel hopes that something like the CCRI will be introduced as a result of our report. At the same time, our Report suggests that the authority for setting rules for research integrity, and enforcing those rules, should remain with the universities, hospitals, and Tri-Council.
Sincerely yours,
Paul Davenport
On November 16, 2010, I sent this letter to Dr. Davenport:
Dear Professor Davenport,
I thank you for answering my letter.
It still remains obvious that Canada needs an agency, outside universities, to investigate research misconduct. To avoid establishing such agency, the Panel confused the term “research misconduct” with “research integrity” and substituted the measures needed to deal with the first for the pure proclamations of the need for the second.
1. The Panel has admitted the existence of the “…inherent conflicts of interest in cases of alleged misconduct at institutions that hold investigative authority…” (page 3). On page 35: “…nearly all current investigative authority in Canada lies with the institution at which a misconduct is alleged to have occurred. This approach presents an inherent conflict of interest…” On the same page: “…Institutional leaders, for example, face an inherent conflict of interest in the event of a research misconduct allegation…” and: ” …the pursuit of an allegation relies heavily on an institutional manager…” The Panel knew that university administration cannot be trusted with the investigations, period. Why the panel continued trusting people who inherently are in a position to cover up research misconduct and stubbornly refused to set up an independent agency?
2. The Panel never showed that research misconduct will be effectively dealt with by repeating the rules and making proclamations in favour of research integrity. As a matter of fact, everyone who was ever found to have committed research misconduct was found doing this intentionally (the definition of misconduct), not due to the ignorance of the rules; they all knew the rules.
3. It should never be missed that assuring everybody, and university administration first, that there never will be an independent investigative agency, amounts to encouraging new misconduct. No one should wonder if the number of cases and the severity of misconduct will grow as a direct result of the Report. Covering up research misconduct by the university administration is greatly encouraged by the Report.
Sincerely yours,
Michael Pyshnov
At this point Dr. Davenport stopped talking.
