Saeko Okada PR office, KEK. Japanese science society are being so shocked by “STAP” scandal –...
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Transcript of Saeko Okada PR office, KEK. Japanese science society are being so shocked by “STAP” scandal –...
How much should PR be responsible
for press release?
Saeko Okada PR office, KEK
Japanese science society are being so shocked by “STAP” scandal – misconduct happened at RIKEN
Young and able female scientist at RIKEN◦ Who is wearing long-sleeved apron her
grandmother gave her as she works◦ Who is so cute and fashionable as she looks
Scientific achievement of nobel prize class published in Nature in January
Brilliant scientific achievement…
…is suspected as misconduct She developed a radical and
remarkably easy way to make cells, called Stimulus-Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency (STAP) cells, that can grow into any tissue in the body.
However, the Riken research institute started an investigation into claims of irregularities in images of her several articles including the paper associated with the discovery of STAP cells in response to the allegations made on blogs and SNS sites.
(cf. Wikipedia)
Suspect: unnatural color of the cells
Suspect: similarity of two figures which originated from different cells
Suspect: cut and paste the figure
Suspect: illegal use of the method description
Suspect: misuse of figure
…from her Ph.D. thesis
200 journalists joined the press conference on the interim report
RIKEN approved the misconducts The scientist is said to suit RIKEN
Final report on the 1st of April
The authority might have thought to do advertisement in order to beat iPS cell project
RIKEN might have thought this big achievement might contribute to become a new governmental research cooperation, which was rejected due to this matter
RIKEN might have used PR agency to achieve the most affective effects to those objects above
=>It may happen to every expensive big science
Why this incident became such a big matter? - Background
This incident may happen to every PR activities conducted for expensive science
Scientist herself Her supervisor, who is an authority of the
field The institute, RIKEN PR office
◦ Why did they distribute the press release on such a fake paper?
◦ They should not produce the media interview to emphasize the girly aspect of the scientist!
They are said to be blamed
Why PR could not find out the manipulation?◦ Do we PIOs have to check their data so strictly?
Takes time Too specialized for PIOs
◦ Approval system too loose? RIKEN: Author – PR Director & Senior Press officer KEK: Author - PR Director & Senior Press officer &
Center director
Organize the inner third committee to exam the paper before we begin to write the press release??
“Why did PR office distribute the press release on such a fake paper?”
Possibilities◦ PR themselves produced the interview – maybe
not ◦ PR was told to produce the interview by the
authority, but could not say “No” – possible Besides, it is said that the authority asked the
advertising firm to do it – possible, cf. SACLA
How can we be so strong as to say “No”?
“PR should not have produced the media interview to emphasize the girly aspect of the scientist!”
Sho Tada of T2K
We do have a “star” scientist