China's leading expert on sexology has received an administrative penalty for swindling State scientific research funds.

He has been demoted and will have to retire earlier, news website The Paper reported on Monday.

His failure to provide invoices of payments to sex workers during interviews was one of the reasons for the penalty to Pan Suiming, former director of the Institute of Sexuality and Gender at Renmin University.

Pan is well-known for the research he carried out on China's 23 red-light districts from 1998 to 2010 when he interviewed more than 1,000 sex workers as well as hundreds of pimps in recent years.

Pan is among seven professors at five universities who have swindled more than 25 million yuan ($4 million) of State scientific research funds, China's anti-corruption watchdog revealed on Oct 10.

Four professors have been arrested for swindling State scientific research funds with false subjects, according to a release from the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

The four include Li Ning of the Chinese University of Agriculture and Chen Yingxu, a water environment professor in Zhejiang University.

The Ministry of Science and Technology, which manages the funds, later organized an internal inspection and punished eight people involved in the cases, including the four arrested.

The Chinese government spent 1 trillion yuan on research and development in 2012 under its scientific innovation drive. However, much of the money has been misused, according to the ministry.

"Although the State Council has general rules on the credibility of fund applicants, it has no specific law on State scientific funds in China," said Meng Bing, a lawyer from King and Capital Lawyer Agency in Beijing.

Meng said the corruption in scientific research is partly due to a lack of supervision and sanctions. He said the science, finance and auditing authorities should cooperate to have better supervision of science funds.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection launched a new section on its website in October exposing cases of misconduct discovered during its first round of inspection from March to May this year.

A total of 10 teams carried out regular inspections in Beijing, Tianjin and eight other provinces. They also conducted special inspections in the Ministry of Science and Technology, State-owned China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation and Fudan University during the same period.

yangwanli@chinadaily.com.cn