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Corruption as Growth Side Effect

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in China, the country's anti-corruption organization, announced last week that it found instances of fraud among research grants managed by Ministry of Science and Technology and at Fudan University, ScienceInsider reports.

While ScienceInsider notes that the announcements provided few details, the commission said it uncovered corruption in research funding and facilities management at Fudan and grants awarded to researchers with conflicts of interest and irregularities in business travel at MOST. According to ScienceInsider, the commission opined that "project evaluation power is too concentrated" and that "the research funding system is not scientifically sound."

R&D spending in China has increased dramatically, ScienceInsider says, increasing from less than 1 percent to more than 2 percent of the Chinese gross domestic product.

"We've gone from a situation of scarcity to one of abundance," Arizona State University's Denis Simon says. "The money available has been growing much faster than the ability to monitor use of that money."