In spring last year, a thesis falsification case was reported, with former director of Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biological Chemistry and distinguished research fellow Chen Ching-shih (陳慶士) found falsifying data and committing research misconduct.
After an investigation that took more than a year, the Ministry of Science and Technology shared their findings, which, surprisingly, not only concealed Chen’s name, but also issued a light penalty, suspending his rights for only five years and retracting NT$600,000 (US$19,367) in grant money. Academia Sinica itself remains silent.
In connection to this breach of academic ethics, many issues immediately come to mind:
First, from being hired by Academia Sinica in 2014 to his resignation after the case was exposed last year, Chen served as a full-time distinguished researcher and director of the institute, with a monthly salary of probably several hundred thousand NT dollars. During this period, he was also a professor at Ohio State University.
Second, Chen was in charge of more than NT$40 million in ministry research grants for projects he led, but the amount of internal Academia Sinica funds that he was in charge of or in direct control of during his years of service there remain unknown.
Third, Chen is likely to have participated in many large domestic research programs and served as judge or reviewer for academic awards. Who might have benefited from his judgement and who might have encountered their downfall because of it?
Academia Sinica and the ministry have an undeniable responsibility to publish a detailed report addressing these issues.
The case brings to mind a forgery scandal from November 2016, when medical research papers published by National Taiwan University (NTU) professor Kuo Min-liang’s (郭明良) research team were reported to contain forged research using duplicated images. Although many people were dissatisfied with how the case was handled, NTU made a good effort by holding several news conferences and issuing statements during the investigation to explain its progress.
Within a few months, NTU released an investigation report of more than 100 pages that showed the results in detail. The investigation process was bumpy and jerky, but it was a great step forward in how academic ethics issues are handled in Taiwan. Unfortunately, those lessons have faded from the public’s mind.
However, the past should not be forgotten, but should be a lesson and guide. The purpose of scientific research is to search for the truth and to resolve the profound mystery of how matters interact and function in the realms of nature and the universe. The spirit of science is to seek the truth.
Hopefully Academia Sinica — Taiwan’s most prestigious academic research institution — will soon release a professional and comprehensive report of the investigation into Chen’s case.
Lin Juhn-jong is a professor at National Chiao Tung University’s Institute of Physics and Department of Electrophysics.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
RSS