Provenance Science reviews the published record at the scale of the laboratory — not the single paper — so that public research funding reaches the work that deserves it, and the researchers who earn it.
Our Mission →When research is fabricated, the cost is not abstract. It is taxpayer funding spent on conclusions that were never real, years of honest work built on foundations that do not hold, and credit owed to careful scientists that is quietly taken by those who cut corners.
Provenance Science exists to change that balance. Our purpose is to channel research funding to where it does the most good — toward rigorous, reproducible, honestly reported science — by clearing the obstacles that divert it elsewhere.
We believe the scientific community is overwhelmingly made up of people doing patient, careful, honest work. They deserve a record they can rely on, and recognition that is not eroded by the few who fabricate. By making sustained misconduct visible and answerable, we help good science compete on its merits and let bad currency leave the field.
Every fabricated result is misallocated funding. We work to ensure research dollars — and the taxpayers behind them — back science that is real.
A trustworthy record lets rigorous researchers be recognized for what they actually achieved, rather than out-competed by manufactured claims.
We identify and document sustained integrity failures so the institutions empowered to act can correct the record and remove what stands in the way.
Research misconduct does not stay contained to one paper. A flawed result that enters the literature can redirect entire fields, attract follow-on funding, and shape the work of laboratories around the world for a decade or more before it is caught.
In 2022, a Science investigation raised extensive concerns about a landmark 2006 Nature paper on a purported Alzheimer’s disease mechanism — one of the most cited in its field. Commentators noted that the affected line of research had been associated with very large sums of public funding and roughly sixteen years of effort building on those findings.
Reported by Science (2022) and widely covered in the mainstream press. Provenance Science was not involved in this case; it is cited here only to illustrate why the integrity of the record matters.
This is one of many documented cases. Our catalogue of notable cases collects formally adjudicated examples and their consequences. Single-paper review, performed after the fact, rarely catches sustained patterns in time — Provenance Science was built to look earlier, and to look wider.
Most scrutiny of the literature happens one paper at a time. A single questionable figure can always be explained away as an honest mistake. But the same method appearing across many papers, over many years, is a different matter — and it is only visible when an entire body of work is examined together.
Provenance Science is preparing its initial body of work for public release. As our review expands, we will publish further findings and methodology. To follow our work or share information relevant to the integrity of the published record, get in touch.
Provenance Science is being established as a non-profit organisation. Rigorous, impartial review of the scientific record is possible only when it answers to no interested party — which is why we intend to operate on charitable and philanthropic support rather than any stake in the outcomes we examine.
We are currently establishing our formal non-profit structure. Ways to support the work — including tax-deductible giving — will be announced here once that is complete. In the meantime, to offer support, partnership, or to follow our progress, please get in touch.