FT FAKING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG?

You may have read the recent story about our indian FTs in NTU and Astar faking research papers. Has it even occured to you who are the FT scientists in Singapore? Why would they leave their countries to come to work in Singapore? Are they talented? Or do they have very limited choices?

Some of them actually have a checkered history and you wonder why they end up holding high positions in Singapore? Is there enough checks conducted on these scientists before they are employed with government money?

I found one Dennis Polla and he is a Director in Astar. See this orgchart:
http://www.a-star.edu.sg/Portals/0/aboutastar/orgcharts/SERC_Orgchart_fe...

In 2000, he was a professor at University of Minnesota but "A $500,000 University investigation into alleged financial mismanagement resulted in the Jan. 7 resignation of Dennis Polla, head of the University's biomedical institute. The investigation found Polla mishandled private and federal funds while billing the federal government inappropriately."

Another website says: "Professor Dennis Polla was investigated by the federal government for misappropriating research funds. The University of Minnesota was forced to pay $812,494 in 2002 to settle the investigation. An internal university report says that his work for the federal government was "financially mismanaged, scientifically unsuccessful and deficient in progress reports."

Source:
a)
http://www.mndaily.com/2000/01/18/polla-resigns-post-light-ofmismanageme...
b)
http://loathingbioethics.blogspot.com/2011/03/another-university-of-minn...

I would urge the authorities to conduct stringent checks on the past conduct and current work of these research scientists. If the money that Singapore government pours into scientific research is only going to get us frauds and second grade results, then the money would be better spent grooming home-grown talent.

Contributed by
Local Talent