BackgroundScientific misconduct is a prevalent phenomenon with many undesirable consequences. In Iran, no original research have been done about scientific fraud. So, this study aimed at describing a challenging research misconduct in Iran, its related causes, and the ways Iranian authorities deal with it.MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, through a two-year period, all the advertisements installed in the study sites were collected and the content analysis was performed. Semi-structured interviews were held with experts for discovering the causes of misconduct. Also, published (...) issues were collected for review of the laws on confronting the fraud in Iran.ResultsThe content analysis resulted in identifying four categories of misconduct issues: advertising approach, types of services, outcome guarantee, and justifying the academic credit. Besides, reviewing the related literature indicated that Iranian government and the responsible authorities have recently established serious penalties for dealing with scientific misconduct through legislation.ConclusionsThis study revealed some misconduct in scientific activities which has persuaded the authorities to enforce strict rules to deal with it. The effectiveness of this legislation needs to be investigated in some further studies. (shrink)

This paper identifies three distinct narratives concerning scientific misconduct: a narrative of “individual impurity” promoted by those wishing to see science self-regulated; a narrative of “institutional impropriety” promoted by those seeking greater external control of science; and a narrative of “structural crisis” among those critiquing the entire process of research itself. The paper begins by assessing contemporary definitions and estimates of scientific misconduct. It emphasizes disagreements over such definitions and estimates as a way to tease out tension and controversy over (...) competing visions of scientific research. It concludes by noting that each narrative suggests a different approach for resolving misconduct, and that the difference inherent in these views may help explain much of the discord concerning unethical behavior in the scientific community. (shrink)

In a survey on research misconduct, roughly 20% of the respondents admitted that they have submitted federal grant proposals that include scholars as research participants even though those scholars were not expected to contribute to the research effort. This manuscript argues that adding such false investigators is illegal, violating multiple federal statutes including the False Statements Act, the False Claims Act, and False, Fictitious, or Fraudulent Claims. Moreover, it is not only the offending academics and the false investigators that face (...) civil and criminal penalties because administrators may also be liable if they sign off on proposals and are in a position to know that false investigators might be included. Policy recommendations that should reduce the use of false investigators include changing institutional cultures, better training and oversight of the responsible conduct of research, and, most importantly, making all grant reviews double blind. (shrink)

Misconduct in research tarnishes the reputation, credibility and integrity of research institutions. Studies on research or scientific misconduct are still novel in developing countries. In this study, we report on the attitudes, perceptions and factors related to the work environment thought to be associated with research misconduct in a group of researchers in Nigeria - a developing country.

Research integrity is a well-established term used to talk and write about ethical issues in research. Part of its success might be its broad applicability. In this paper, we suggest that this might also be its Achilles heel, since it has the potential to conceal important value conflicts. We identify three broad domains upon which research integrity is applied in the literature: (1) the researcher (or research group), (2) research, and (3) research-related institutions and systems. Integrity in relation to researchers (...) concerns character, although it remains to specify precisely what character traits are the desirable ones in this context and what values researchers should endorse. Integrity in relation to research concerns correct and sufficient description of the research process, data, results, and overall ‘research record’. Hence, it concerns the quality of research. However, whether or not this notion of research integrity covers all ethical aspects of research depends on whether one endorses a wider or a narrower interpretation of the ‘research process’. Integrity in relation to research-related institutions and systems leaves open whether they should be understood as agents in their own right or merely as means to research integrity. Besides the potential lack of clarity that our analysis reveals, we point to how this variety in uses might lead to concealment of value conflicts and propose an open discussion of central values. (shrink)

The field of experimental philosophy has received considerable attention, essentially for producing results that seem highly counter-intuitive and at the same time question some of the fundamental methods used in philosophy. A substantial part of this attention has focused on the role of intuitions in philosophical methodology. One of the major contributions of experimental philosophy on this topic has been concrete evidence in support of intuitional diversity; the idea that intuitions vary systematically depending on variables such as ethnicity, socioeconomic background, (...) or gender. Because of the important implications, these findings have been the subject of extensive debate. Despite the seeming significance of the findings and despite all the debates that the experimental philosophy movement has prompted, what has not been examined systematically is the reproducibility of the results. Instead, the reported findings have been simply accepted as established facts. We set out to replicate a wide range of experiments and surprisingly failed to reproduce many of the reported findings, some of which are from the most cited and attention grabbing papers of the field. We draw two conclusions from our findings. The first is that the instability of intuitions has been exaggerated by experimental philosophers. Intuitions appear to be more uniform across different demographic groups. The argument that intuitions need to be discarded because they depend on arbitrary factors such as ethnicity, socioeconomic background, or gender does not seem tenable anymore. The second conclusion is that experimental philosophy needs a better system to ensure the reproducibility of published findings. The current research-publication system of various empirical fields, especially those employing statistical methods, leads to an overproduction of false-positive findings in the published literature. Unless changes are made to the current research-publication system, this overproduction is likely to continue, in experimental philosophy as well as other disciplines. (shrink)

This paper discusses the criminalization of scientific misconduct, as discussed and defended in the bioethics literature. In doing so it argues against the claim that fabrication, falsification and plagiarism (FFP) together identify the most serious forms of misconduct, which hence ought to be criminalized, whereas other forms of misconduct should not. Drawing the line strictly at FFP is problematic both in terms of what is included and what is excluded. It is also argued that the criminalization of scientific misconduct, despite (...) its anticipated benefits, is at risk of giving the false impression that dubious practices falling outside the legal regulation “do not count”. Some doubts are also raised concerning whether criminalization of the most serious forms of misconduct will lower the burdens for universities or successfully increase research integrity. Rather, with or without criminalization, other measures must be taken and are probably more important in order to foster a more healthy research environment. (shrink)

Data fraud and selective reporting both present serious threats to the credibility of science. However, there remains considerable disagreement among scientists about how best to sanction data fraud, and about the ethicality of selective reporting. The public is arguably the largest stakeholder in the reproducibility of science; research is primarily paid for with public funds, and flawed science threatens the public’s welfare. Members of the public are able to make meaningful judgments about the morality of different behaviors using moral intuitions. (...) Legal scholars emphasize that to maintain legitimacy, social control policies must be developed with some consideration given to the public’s moral intuitions. Although there is a large literature on popular attitudes toward science, there is no existing evidence about public opinion on data fraud or selective reporting. We conducted two studies—a survey experiment with a nationwide convenience sample, and a follow-up survey with a representative sample of US adults —to explore community members’ judgments about the morality of data fraud and selective reporting in science. The findings show that community members make a moral distinction between data fraud and selective reporting, but overwhelmingly judge both behaviors to be immoral and deserving of punishment. Community members believe that scientists who commit data fraud or selective reporting should be fired and banned from receiving funding. For data fraud, most Americans support criminal penalties. Results from an ordered logistic regression analysis reveal few demographic and no significant partisan differences in punitiveness toward data fraud. (shrink)

Research misconduct is harmful because it threatens public health and public safety, and also undermines public confidence in science. Efforts to eradicate ongoing and prevent future misconduct are numerous and varied, yet the question of “what works” remains largely unanswered. To shed light on this issue, this study used data from both mail and online surveys administered to a stratified random sample of tenured and tenure-track faculty members (N = 613) in the social, natural, and applied sciences at America’s top (...) 100 research universities. Participants were asked to gauge the effectiveness of various intervention strategies: formal sanctions (professional and legal), informal sanctions (peers), prevention efforts (ethics and professional training), and reducing the pressures associated with working in research-intensive units. Results indicated that (1) formal sanctions received the highest level of support, (2) female scholars and researchers working in the applied sciences favored formal sanctions, and (3) a nontrivial portion of the sample supported an integrated approach that combined elements of different strategies. A key takeaway for university administrators is that a multifaceted approach to dealing with the problem of research misconduct, which prominently features enhanced formal sanctions, will be met with the support of university faculty. (shrink)