Short teaser text: Anna is a research fellow at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.
Full text: Dr. Anna Abalkina is a research fellow at Freie Universität Berlin (Germany). Her research focuses on corruption in higher education, academic misconduct, plagiarism, and predatory and hijacked journals, as well as on explaining their costs and consequences. In 2022, Anna Abalkina, in collaboration with Retraction Watch, created The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker,” a regularly updated list of hijacked journals. She also studies paper mills in different roles: as a researcher, a sleuth, and a member of United2Act working groups. She received Nature’s 10 award in 2024 for her work on exposing fraud.
Function description: Associate Professor and Principal Investigator at Amsterdam UMC
Organisation: Amsterdam UMC and VU University
Location - country: The Netherlands
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Short teaser text: Joeri Tijdink is an associate professor and principal investigator at Amsterdam UMC, location VUmc, and is affiliated with VU University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Full text: Joeri Tijdink is an associate professor and principal investigator at Amsterdam UMC, location VUmc, and is affiliated with VU University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. After studying medicine at Utrecht University (1999–2006) and specializing as a clinical psychiatrist in Amsterdam (2007–2012), he completed his PhD (2012–2015), entitled Publish & Perish: Research on Research and Researchers. His thesis focused on the impact of publication pressure on research quality and the mental health of researchers. His current research focuses on research integrity, reproducibility, research quality, mental well-being in academia, and research culture. He is involved in several national and international research projects, including the TIER2 project (www.tier2-project.eu), which explores the future(s) of reproducibility and develops tools to support reproducibility practices. He is also a principal investigator in the EU-funded TRUSTparency project, which implements promotion plans for different stakeholders to foster reproducibility practices. In addition, he leads several projects aimed at supporting a responsible research culture in diverse academic settings and studies how early career researchers can be empowered to speak up. He initiated the national Akademiethermometer survey, which investigates the mental health of academics in the Netherlands. Joeri is also the author of the book The Happy Academic – How to Thrive and Survive in Academia (2023), which offers guidance to early career researchers navigating the challenges of academic life. In his work, he consistently focuses on individual, cultural, and systemic factors that can help improve academia, with a strong emphasis on promoting mental health among researchers. Alongside his research, he continues to work as a clinical psychiatrist. In 2022, he was appointed as a member of The Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, highlighting his commitment to improving research quality, strengthening the societal relevance of research, and fostering a more supportive academic environment for early career researchers.
Function description: Professor at the School of Chemical Engineering of NTUA and Director of RNanoLab
Organisation: School of Chemical Engineering of NTUA
Location - country: Greece
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Short teaser text: Extensive R&D experience through collaborations with international research centres
Full text: He has extensive R&D experience through collaborations with international research centres in the context of more than 60 projects funded by the European Commission and National funds, in many of them as Coordinator. He is a referee in International scientific journals, evaluator & scientific advisor of R&D projects. He is the author of several scientific books, chapters in international textbooks, and more than 400 scientific publications in peer-reviewed international journals and conference proceedings and his work has received ~7800 citations (h-index 44).
Function description: Research Integrity Director at Springer Nature
Organisation: Springer Nature
Location - country: United Kingdom
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Short teaser text: Chris Graf is the Research Integrity Director at Springer Nature and Chair of the World Conference on Research Integrity Foundation Governing Board.
Full text: Chris Graf is the Research Integrity Director at Springer Nature, in charge of leading the continued development and implementation of Springer Nature’s research integrity strategy, leading a team accountable for assuring the highest standards for research integrity in all of Springer Nature’s publications, working with many good colleagues inside Springer Nature and with many good academic partners outside Springer Nature. Chris also serves the publishing sector with a voluntary role at the STM Association, the global trade association for academic and professional publishers, where he chairs a committee of senior publishing industry executives overseeing governance of the STM Integrity Hub, and the STM Research Integrity Committee. In 2023 Chris was appointed to a position as committee member of the UK Committee on Research Integrity, a new organisation hosted by UKRI, that promotes research integrity across the UK and internationally.
Organisation: Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development
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Short teaser text: Paulo Beirão, PhD, was Chair of the Commission on Research Integrity at CNPq (2011-2013).
Full text: Paulo Beirão, PhD, Full Professor at the Biochemistry and Immunology Department, UFMG. He was president of the Brazilian Society for Biophysics (1994-1996) and the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2006-2008). He was also president of the Board of Trustees of FAPEMIG (2010-2011) and has acted as a representative of the scientific community in various committees on education, science and technology, including those at CNPq. He was a member of FINEP Advisory Council and of the committee that developed the 2011-2020 Brazilian National Plan for Graduate Studies, launched by CAPES. He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and former director of the Agricultural, Biological, and Health Sciences Division of CNPq (2011-2013). He was Chair of the Commission on Research Integrity at CNPq (2011-2013) and is currently the director of Director of Science, Technology and Innovation of Minas Gerais Foundation for Research Support.
