A paper "Living annulative π-extension polymerization for graphene nanoribbon synthesis" by the research team of Professor Kenichiro Itami from the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules, Nagoya University, was published in the scientific journal Nature in June 2019. However, during repeating the synthesis, Professor Kenichiro Itami and Associate Professor Hideto Ito recognized that the data used in the paper were suspicious. They filed a complaint with the Nagoya University Misconduct Complaint Desk on their own initiative. The article was retracted from Nature as of November 25, 2020. Two other papers on GNR published by the team were also retracted.
In response, Nagoya University set up a dedicated investigation committee to investigate whether any misconduct occurred in their research activities. After the investigation, instances of misconduct were identified.
This is an extremely regrettable situation and we sincerely apologize to everyone from the bottom of our hearts for our shortcomings and how it has affected the community.
We will thoroughly ensure that research ethics are abided by university-wide, so that misconduct in research activities will never occur again.
See below for the investigation report.
See below for research misconduct prevention efforts.