Lecture 4 - Pierre-Jean Benghozi

In a world of research where the pressure to publish is increasing, where exchanges and circulation of papers are more and more intense, where search engines increasingly favour the tracing of references, we are more and more often confronted with cases of plagiarism and frauds of all kinds: in articles submitted to journals, in communications, in theses, in books. This phenomenon concerns students and faculty members of all disciplines. 
For a long time, the realities of these deceptions and real scientific scams have been overlooked or downplayed. This has often led to a lot of undisclosed and unspoken suffering, but still present. But in the end, however, this does not contribute to solving the underlying problems that are now increasingly common with the development of the Internet and pressures to publish. In this context, the multiplication of cases denounced or noted by journals makes non-action impossible. Existing examples from other disciplines show that, in the absence of proactive policies and collective arrangements, there is a significant risk of crisis at the level of a disciplinary community or large institutions. 
Fraud cases are a source of suffering for the mass of scientists, who struggle to produce results "according to the rules of the art" and are overtaken by unscrupulous colleagues in journals and promotions. But there is also suffering sometimes for fraudsters and plagiarists, who can be nailed to the pillori, beyond the importance of their fault, because they do not know how to recognize their mistakes. 
In the absence of recognized mediation bodies, experience shows that the academic community is most often very poorly placed to deal with the situation when such cases emerge: who can deal with them, within what framework, with what legitimacy, with which intervention force? This phenomenon can only grow with the rise of ICTs, which allow for easier copying, improved traceability and the possibility of a return on archived old projects. 
In such a configuration, the challenge is often less to define or characterize fraud and plagiarism practices than to develop proposals for collective handling of complaints and conflicts, within institutional frameworks that are necessarily trans-institutional and trans-national. 

Pierre-Jean Benghozi has an initial scientific education in engineering from the Ecole Polytechnique (Paris) and is graduated, additionally, in Management studies (PhD) and Economic.  Professor at the École Polytechnique and Director at the National Centre for Scientific Resarch (CNRS), he headed up, until 2013, the Centre for Management and Economic Research. 
Pierre-Jean Benghozi is presently Commissioner at the French Electronic Communications and Postal Regulatory Authority (Arcep).
He founded and has been in charge of the Innovation and Regulation in Digital Services Chair since 2007. He created, in an educational partnership jointly operated by the best higher education institutions, an international graduate Master program of excellence on Network Industries and Digital Economy (IREN).
Pr Benghozi developed, since the early eighties, pioneering research unit and programs on Information Technology, Telecommunications, Media and Culture. His recent projects draw attention to the adoption and uses of ITC in large organizations, the structuring of ITC-supported markets and supply chains, the characterization of competitive business models, expressly in creative industries. 
Pr Benghozi publishes on these topics more than 150 academic international publications. Board member of scientific committee in highest French institutions and numerous international scientific conferences and academic journals, Pierre-Jean Benghozi taught regularly in major Universities and is frequently requested as an expert by public bodies and private organizations.
In his many academic responsibilities or at the head of scholarly societies, Pr. Benghozi has always been particularly involved in issues of scientific mediation, integrity and plagiarism: he has notably led or accompanied several innovative projects in the field of conflict resolution.