Co - author responsibility Distinguishing between the moral and epistemic aspects of trust Hanne Andersen

S everal high-profile cases of research misconduct during the past decade have explicitly raised the question whether co-authors share responsibility for scientific misconduct perpetrated by a collaborator. There is no clear answer though, as different cases of misconduct differ in terms of how the co-authors were involved in the work. Nonetheless, media coverage, public interest, and intense debates have at least increased awareness and triggered discussion among the scientific community over the issue of co-author responsibility. This article aims to contribute to this important discussion by analyzing four particular high-profile cases of scientific misconduct and providing a deeper analysis of trust in research with a special emphasis on cooperators’ and co-authors’ responsibility for fraudulent or flawed research. Our working hypothesis is that we can distinguish between a moral and an epistemic dimension of trust that have different repercussions for how scientists should deal with and prevent misconduct.