ethics - Is there any research on the prevalence of academic theft?

Some ­— perhaps many — academics seem to be very careful in keeping unpublished work secret. It is not difficult to find anecdotes where academic ideas are stolen, such as in this post by @Markus. Others, such as @NateEldredge in this post write that It seems to be pretty common for people starting out in academia to overestimate the risks of people stealing their work. Personally, I'm rather at the other end of the spectrum, and I don't feel afraid that my ideas would be stolen. Perhaps I'm naïve.

Is there any research on the question: how common is academic theft, really? Such as surveys of people having experienced (or committed!) such theft according to an appropriate definition, possibly compared to peoples' perception as to the risks. It would be interesting to see if there are some facts to refer to. Perhaps it is field dependent?

(By academic theft, I am not talking about plagiarism, but rather about stealing research ideas before anything is published)

Answer

Is there any research on the question: how common is academic theft, really? Such as surveys of people having experienced (or committed!) such theft according to an appropriate definition, possibly compared to peoples perception as to the risks.

See the related articles:

De Vries, Raymond, Melissa S. Anderson, and Brian C. Martinson. "Normal misbehavior: Scientists talk about the ethics of research." Journal of empirical research on human research ethics: JERHRE 1.1 (2006): 43.

and

Martinson, Brian C., Melissa S. Anderson, and Raymond De Vries. "Scientists behaving badly." Nature 435.7043 (2005): 737-738.

Among a sample of 3,247 NIH-funded scientists in the United States, asked about the behavior "Using another's ideas without permission or giving due credit":

• 1.4% said they themselves have engaged in this behavior within the last three years


• 45.7% agreed with the statement, "I have observed or had other direct evidence of this behavior among my professional colleagues including postdoctoral associates, within the last three years."

Please read the article for methodology, limitations, etc.