It was October 2019 when Lorenza Colzato was appointed as a researcher at TU Dresden’s Faculty of Medicine. Not even two months after that, Leiden University, her previous employer, publishes a report by the Committee for Academic Integrity showing that she had tampered with data and grant applications, illegally taken blood sample, fabricated experiments and made test subjects disappear. Two articles were retracted.

Legal judgment

That investigation did not result in any consequences for her appointment. And even after the follow-up investigation, which revealed that Colzato had committed fraud in at least fifteen more articles, TU Dresden did not take any action against her.

‘As the investigation committee’s findings concern the time during which Colzato worked at Leiden University, that is where possible consequences lie’, says Anne Vetter, TU Dresden’s spokesperson. ‘Moreover, it’s not a legal judgment. Our legal department states that we cannot take action on the basis of the investigation.’

Vetter adds that Colzato has been ‘closely supervised’ since she took up her post at the university and that she has been ‘highly constrained’.

‘When she was appointed, Colzato informed the university that there were allegations of scientific misconduct against her and that an investigation might follow. But at that time, it was not yet known that that investigation had already been initiated.’

That is not true, however. The investigation had already begun in spring 2019 and the first hearings were in May and June of that same year.

Professors shocked

‘No evidence of scientific fraud has been found since Colzato started working at TU Dresden’, Vetter says. ‘Scientific misconduct is not tolerated at TU Dresden and all possible efforts are made to avoid it.’

Nevertheless, the news has created quite a stir. In an e-mail to all staff members of the Faculty of Psychology, which Mare has obtained, three professors, including the vice-dean, write that they are ‘shocked’ by the findings in the follow-up report and that they are ‘evaluating potential consequences’.

No further action

According to university spokesperson Vetter, the Faculty of Psychology cannot take any action because Colzato is officially employed by the Faculty of Medicine. She even denies that such a statement was made at all: ‘This was not requested or announced in any internal email.’  

Christian Beste, Colzato’s superior in the department of cognitive psychology, did not respond to questions.

The German university association Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK) stated that it does not comment on ‘matters that occur at individual universities’ and would not explain whether it is common practice to take fraud at another university into account when appointing new staff.

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