On August 27, two junior researchers working with the Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel at Tilburg University contacted a university administrator with suspicions that their senior colleague was using faked data. As one of the worst forms of academic shenanigans that fall under the broad umbrella of "academic misconduct", an allegation of data fabrication was quite serious. This is especially true because Diederik Stapel was in the early stages of a prolific scientific career; he served on the editorial board of six different academic journals and had received the 2007 "Early Career Award" from the International Society for Self and Identity (ISSI). He had also published many articles that received generous press attention, including one in Science that claimed that messy environments promote discrimination.
Nonetheless, a little over a week and one university investigation later, Stapel admitted to making up data and was sacked from Tilburg University.
