In its second batch of misconduct findings 2025 year, the organization responsible for allocating basic research funding in China has called out 25 researchers for paper mill activity and plagiarism. The National Natural Science Foundation of China, or NSFC, gives more than 20,000 grants annually in disciplines ranging from agriculture to cancer research. The NSFC publishes the reports periodically the first report, released in April, 2025 states. The organization awarded 31.9 billion yuan, or about US$4.5 billion, in project funds in 2023.

The misconduct findings were similar to those in the NSFC’s first first batch in April. Offenses included "buying and selling of experimental research data" and "plagiarism, forgery and tampering." As a result, NSFC barred those researchers from applying for or participating in grants for three or five years, and, in some cases, required grant recipients to pay back funds they’d already received. Seven of the studies on the list, coauthored by 14 of the sanctioned researchers, were retracted before the report was released.

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2025/07/02/chinese-funding-agency-penalizes-25-researchers-for-misconduct/

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