Demand for transparency in research misconduct probes A prominent scientist and president of a prestigious university investigated by Chinese authorities for alleged data falsification has been cleared of plagiarism and research fraud, but the high-profile exoneration has attracted criticism and renewed focus on China’s policing of research misconduct. In particular, academics have called for more transparency over the workings of such high-level ethics panels investigating prominent individuals. Immunologist Cao Xuetao, who is president of Nankai University in the port city of Tianjin, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, came under investigation in late 2019 when San Francisco-based microbiologist Elisabeth Bik uncovered alleged problems related to ‘misused images’ in several articles authored by Cao, and then flagged up almost 60 papers by the same author regarded as problematic.