How much should PR be responsible

for press release?

Saeko Okada PR office, KEK

Japanese science society are being so shocked by “STAP” scandal – misconduct happened at RIKEN

Young and able female scientist at RIKEN◦ Who is wearing long-sleeved apron her

grandmother gave her as she works◦ Who is so cute and fashionable as she looks

Scientific achievement of nobel prize class published in Nature in January

Brilliant scientific achievement…

…is suspected as misconduct She developed a radical and

remarkably easy way to make cells, called Stimulus-Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency (STAP) cells, that can grow into any tissue in the body.

However, the Riken research institute started an investigation into claims of irregularities in images of her several articles including the paper associated with the discovery of STAP cells in response to the allegations made on blogs and SNS sites.

(cf. Wikipedia)

Suspect: unnatural color of the cells

Suspect: similarity of two figures which originated from different cells

Suspect: cut and paste the figure

Suspect: illegal use of the method description

Suspect: misuse of figure

…from her Ph.D. thesis

200 journalists joined the press conference on the interim report

RIKEN approved the misconducts The scientist is said to suit RIKEN

Final report on the 1st of April

The authority might have thought to do advertisement in order to beat iPS cell project

RIKEN might have thought this big achievement might contribute to become a new governmental research cooperation, which was rejected due to this matter

RIKEN might have used PR agency to achieve the most affective effects to those objects above

=>It may happen to every expensive big science

Why this incident became such a big matter? - Background

This incident may happen to every PR activities conducted for expensive science

Scientist herself Her supervisor, who is an authority of the

field The institute, RIKEN PR office

◦ Why did they distribute the press release on such a fake paper?

◦ They should not produce the media interview to emphasize the girly aspect of the scientist!

They are said to be blamed

Why PR could not find out the manipulation?◦ Do we PIOs have to check their data so strictly?

Takes time Too specialized for PIOs

◦ Approval system too loose? RIKEN: Author – PR Director & Senior Press officer KEK: Author - PR Director & Senior Press officer &

Center director

Organize the inner third committee to exam the paper before we begin to write the press release??

“Why did PR office distribute the press release on such a fake paper?”

Possibilities◦ PR themselves produced the interview – maybe

not ◦ PR was told to produce the interview by the

authority, but could not say “No” – possible Besides, it is said that the authority asked the

advertising firm to do it – possible, cf. SACLA

How can we be so strong as to say “No”?

“PR should not have produced the media interview to emphasize the girly aspect of the scientist!”

Sho Tada of T2K

We do have a “star” scientist