2026 Research Misconduct News A compilation of articles regarding Research Misconduct and responsible conduct of research issues.

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Science
Zvonimir Marelja

When a paper I had spent years working on tirelessly was published in Science, others expected me to be happy. One senior scientist immediately urged me to work on securing my own funding for a follow-up project and added, “If you want to become a PI [principal investigator], you now have to give 150%.” The advice was well-meaning; in his view, the Science publication was a step toward a job leading a lab. But it wasn’t clear how I would find the energy to keep going. After 8 years pouring myself into one postdoc project and submitting to Nature and Science, I barely had 50% left.

Years earlier, when I moved to France to start the project, I was full of enthusiasm and happy to work long hours. But as time went on and I struggled to get my project off the ground, pressure and insecurity became my main motivators. If I failed, I feared I would never get a job in academia.

Haunted by low self-esteem, I put pressure on myself to work harder and felt guilty whenever I took a break. Weekends disappeared into experiments, vacations shrank to a few days, and my mind no longer knew how to rest.

Continue reading "How chasing a high-impact publication nearly broke me"