BackgroundResearch on research integrity has tended to focus on frequency of research misconduct and factors that might induce someone to commit research misconduct. A definitive answer to the first question has been elusive, but it remains clear that any research misconduct is too much. Answers to the second question are so diverse, it might be productive to ask a different question: What about how research is done allows research misconduct to occur?MethodsWith that question in mind, research integrity officers of the (...) 62 members of the American Association of Universities were invited to complete a brief survey about their most recent instance of a finding of research misconduct. Respondents were asked whether one or more good practices of research were present in their case of research misconduct.ResultsTwenty-four of the respondents indicated they had dealt with at least one finding of research misconduct and answered the survey questions. Over half of these RIOs reported that their case of research misconduct had occurred in an environment in which at least nine of the ten listed good practices of research were deficient.ConclusionsThese results are not evidence for a causal effect of poor practices, but it is arguable that committing research misconduct would be more difficult if not impossible in research environments adhering to good practices of research. (shrink)

The proportion of research misconduct cases among trainees in the biomedical sciences has risen, raising the question of why, and what are the responsibilities of research administrators and the research community to address this problem. Although there is no definitive research about causes, for trainees the relationship with a research mentor should play a major role in preventing actions that constitute research misconduct. Examination of the limited literature and of the number of cases closed by the US Office of Research (...) Integrity between 2009 and 2013 raises questions about the mentor-student relationship and what it should be accomplishing. But many gaps in policy and its implementation inhibit this role. There is no acknowledgement of mentorship in federal regulations and research on how to teach research integrity is woefully underdeveloped, especially for international trainees. And some institutional research integrity officers may have had little preparation for the role. (shrink)

In this article we describe our approach to understanding wrongdoing in medical research and practice, which involves the statistical analysis of coded data from a large set of published cases. We focus on understanding the environmental factors that predict the kind and the severity of wrongdoing in medicine. Through review of empirical and theoretical literature, consultation with experts, the application of criminological theory, and ongoing analysis of our first 60 cases, we hypothesize that 10 contextual features of the medical environment (...) (including financial rewards, oversight failures, and patients belonging to vulnerable groups) may contribute to professional wrongdoing. We define each variable, examine data supporting our hypothesis, and present a brief case synopsis from our study that illustrates the potential influence of the variable. Finally, we discuss limitations of the resulting framework and directions for future research. (shrink)

BackgroundEven though research integrity (RI) training programs have been developed in the last decades, it is argued that current training practices are not always able to increase RI-related awareness within the scientific community. Defining and understanding the capacities and lacunas of existing RI training are becoming extremely important for developing up-to-date educational practices to tackle present-day challenges. Recommendations on how to implement RI education have been primarily made by selected people with specific RI-related expertise. Those recommendations were developed mainly without (...) consulting a broader audience with no specific RI expertise. Moreover, the academic literature lacks qualitative studies on RI training practices. For these reasons, performing in-depth focus groups with non-RI expert stakeholders are of a primary necessity to understand and outline how RI education should be implemented.MethodsIn this qualitative analysis, different focus groups were conducted to examine stakeholders’ perspectives on RI training practices. Five stakeholders' groups, namely publishers and peer reviewers, researchers on RI, RI trainers, PhDs and postdoctoral researchers, and research administrators working within academia, have been identified to have a broader overview of state of the art.ResultsA total of 39 participants participated in five focus group sessions. Eight training-related themes were highlighted during the focus group discussions. The training goals, timing and frequency, customisation, format and teaching approach, mentoring, compulsoriness, certification and evaluation, and RI-related responsibilities were discussed. Although confirming what was already proposed by research integrity experts in terms of timing, frequency, duration, and target audience in organising RI education, participants proposed other possible implementations strategies concerning the teaching approach, researchers' obligations, and development an evaluation-certification system.ConclusionsThis research aims to be a starting point for a better understanding of necessary, definitive, and consistent ways of structuring RI education. The research gives an overview of what has to be considered needed in planning RI training sessions regarding objectives, organisation, and teaching approach. (shrink)

A Scientific Integrity Consortium developed a set of recommended principles and best practices that can be used broadly across scientific disciplines as a mechanism for consensus on scientific integrity standards and to better equip scientists to operate in a rapidly changing research environment. The two principles that represent the umbrella under which scientific processes should operate are as follows: Foster a culture of integrity in the scientific process. Evidence-based policy interests may have legitimate roles to play in influencing aspects of (...) the research process, but those roles should not interfere with scientific integrity. The nine best practices for instilling scientific integrity in the implementation of these two overarching principles are Require universal training in robust scientific methods, in the use of appropriate experimental design and statistics, and in responsible research practices for scientists at all levels, with the training content regularly updated and presented by qualified scientists. Strengthen scientific integrity oversight and processes throughout the research continuum with a focus on training in ethics and conduct. Encourage reproducibility of research through transparency. Strive to establish open science as the standard operating procedure throughout the scientific enterprise. Develop and implement educational tools to teach communication skills that uphold scientific integrity. Strive to identify ways to further strengthen the peer review process. Encourage scientific journals to publish unanticipated findings that meet standards of quality and scientific integrity. Seek harmonization and implementation among journals of rapid, consistent, and transparent processes for correction and/or retraction of published papers. Design rigorous and comprehensive evaluation criteria that recognize and reward the highest standards of integrity in scientific research. (shrink)

BackgroundInstitutions, funding agencies and publishers are placing increasing emphasis on good research data management (RDM). RDM lapses in medical science can result in questionable data and cause the public’s confidence in the scientific community to crumble. A fledgling medical school in a young university in Singapore has mandated every funded research project to have a data management plan (DMP). However, researchers’ adherence to their DMPs was unknown until the school embarked on routine data auditing. We hypothesize that research data auditing (...) improves RDM awareness, compliance and reception in the school.MethodsWe conducted surveys with research PIs and researchers before and after data auditing to evaluate differences in self-reported RDM awareness, compliance and reception. As it is mandatory to deposit research data in a central data repository system in the school, we tracked data deposition by each laboratory from 2 weeks before to 3 months after data auditing as a marker of actual RDM compliance.ResultsResearch data auditing had an overall positive effect on self-reported RDM awareness, compliance and reception for both research PIs and researchers. Research PIs agreed more that RDM was important to scientific reproducibility, were more aware of proper RDM, had higher RDM strength in their laboratories and were more compliant with the DMP. Both research PIs and researchers believed data auditing helped them to be more compliant with data deposition in the repository. However, data auditing had no significant impact on laboratories’ data deposition rates over time, which could be due to the short sampling period.ConclusionsResearch PIs and researchers generally felt that data auditing was effective in improving RDM practices. It helped to evaluate their RDM practices objectively, propose corrective actions for RDM lapses and spread awareness of the university’s data management policies. Our findings corroborated other studies in medical research, geosciences, engineering and ethics that data auditing promotes good RDM practices. Hence, we recommend research institutions worldwide to adopt data auditing as a tool to reinforce research integrity. (shrink)

BackgroundResearch misconduct and questionable research practices have been the subject of increasing attention in the past few years. But despite the rich body of research available, few empirical works also include the perspectives of non-researcher stakeholders.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with policy makers, funders, institution leaders, editors or publishers, research integrity office members, research integrity community members, laboratory technicians, researchers, research students, and former-researchers who changed career to inquire on the topics of success, integrity, and responsibilities in science. (...) We used the Flemish biomedical landscape as a baseline to be able to grasp the views of interacting and complementary actors in a system setting.ResultsGiven the breadth of our results, we divided our findings in a two-paper series with the current paper focusing on the problems that affect the integrity and research culture. We first found that different actors have different perspectives on the problems that affect the integrity and culture of research. Problems were either linked to personalities and attitudes, or to the climates in which researchers operate. Elements that were described as essential for success were often thought to accentuate the problems of research climates by disrupting research culture and research integrity. Even though all participants agreed that current research climates need to be addressed, participants generally did not feel responsible nor capable of initiating change. Instead, respondents revealed a circle of blame and mistrust between actor groups.ConclusionsOur findings resonate with recent debates, and extrapolate a few action points which might help advance the discussion. First, the research integrity debate must revisit and tackle the way in which researchers are assessed. Second, approaches to promote better science need to address the impact that research climates have on research integrity and research culture rather than to capitalize on individual researchers’ compliance. Finally, inter-actor dialogues and shared decision making must be given priority to ensure that the perspectives of the full research system are captured. Understanding the relations and interdependency between these perspectives is key to be able to address the problems of science.Study registrationhttps://osf.io/33v3m. (shrink)

Research misconduct has been thoroughly discussed in the literature, but mainly in terms of definitions and prescriptions for proper conduct. Even when case studies are cited, they are generally used as a repository of “lessons learned.” What has been lacking from this conversation is how the lessons of responsible conduct of research are imparted in the first place to graduate students, especially those in technical fields such as engineering. Nor has there been much conversation about who is responsible for what (...) in training students in Responsible Conduct of Research or in allocating blame in cases of misconduct. This paper explores three seemingly disparate cases of misconduct—the 2004 plagiarism scandal at Ohio University; the famous Robert Millikan article of 1913, in which his reported data selection did not match his notebooks; and the 1990 fabrication scandal in Dr. Leroy Hood’s research lab. Comparing these cases provides a way to look at the relationship between the graduate student (or trainee) and his/her advisor (a relationship that has been shown to be the most influential one for the student) as well as at possibly differential treatment for established researchers and researchers-in-training, in cases of misconduct. This paper reflects on the rights and responsibilities of research advisers and their students and offers suggestions for clarifying both those responsibilities and the particularly murky areas of research-conduct guidelines. (shrink)

Promoting research integrity practices among doctoral candidates and early career researchers is important for creating a stable and healthy research environment. In addition to teaching specific technical skills and knowledge, research supervisors and mentors inevitably convey research practices, both directly and indirectly. We conducted a scoping review to summarise the role of mentors in fostering research integrity practices, mentors’ responsibilities and the role that institutions have in supporting good mentorship. We searched five different databases and included studies that used an (...) empirical methodology. After searching, a total of 1199 articles were retrieved, of which 24 were eligible for analysis. After snowballing, a total of 35 empirical articles were selected. The review discusses various themes such as the importance of good mentorship, poor mentorship practices, virtues and qualities of mentors, responsibilities and activities of mentors, group mentoring and responsibilities of the institution in supporting good mentorship. This review demonstrates the importance of mentors instilling responsible research practices and attitudes, and promoting research integrity among their mentees. Mentors are responsible for providing explicit guidance and for acting as good role models. The review highlights how poor mentorship can have a bad impact on the research climate. In addition, the review highlights the important influence that institutions can have in supporting mentorship. (shrink)

CITATION: Horn, L. M. 2015. Promoting responsible research conduct in a developing world academic context. South African Journal of Bioethics and Law, 6:21-24, doi:10.7196/SAJBL.256.

The importance of public confidence in scientific findings and trust in scientists cannot be overstated. Thus, it becomes critical for the scientific community to focus on enhancing the strategies used to educate future scientists on ethical research behaviors. What we are lacking is knowledge on how faculty members shape and develop ethical research standards with their students. We are presenting the results of a survey with 3,500 research faculty members. We believe this is the first report on how faculty work (...) with and educate their PhD students on basic research standards. Specifically, we wanted to determine whether individual faculty members, who are advisors or mentors, differ in how they implemented components of responsible conduct of research (RCR) with their PhD students. Mentors were more likely than advisors or supervisors to report working with all of their PhDs, who graduated in the last 5 years, on the 17 recognized critical components of RCR training and research skill development. We also found about half of the faculty members believe RCR is an institutional responsibility versus a faculty responsibility. Less than a quarter have had opportunities to participate in faculty training to be a better mentor, advisor, or research teacher, and about one third of faculty did not or could not remember whether they had guidelines related to their responsibilities to PhD students. We discuss the implications of our findings and focus on ways that PhD research mentoring can be enhanced. (shrink)

Scientific malpractice is not just due to researchers having bad intentions, but also due to a lack of education concerning research integrity practices. Besides the importance of institutionalised trainings on research integrity, research supervisors play an important role in translating what doctoral students learn during research integrity formal sessions. Supervision practices and role modelling influence directly and indirectly supervisees’ attitudes and behaviour toward responsible research. Research supervisors can not be left alone in this effort. Research institutions are responsible for supporting (...) supervisors in being more aware of their RI function, and in supporting responsible supervision practices to have a positive cascading effect on supervisees’ research practices. We interviewed 22 European research supervisors to investigate how they perceive their role as research integrity trainers and their real-life supervision practices. Moreover, we investigated their points of view concerning the role of research institutions in supporting supervision practices. Although there are different commonalities in supervisors’ perception of their research integrity-related role, differences are emphasised depending on the supervisors’ characteristics such as academic domain, seniority, working country and gender. In addition, supervisors’ way of mentoring depend also on supervisees’ learning curve. Overall, all supervisors agreed on institutions playing an important role in support their supervision effort and practices. This study aims to be a starting point for better understanding research integrity supervision practices and the role of institutions in supporting them. Moreover, it puts the basis to further investigate differences in supervision practices depending on supervisors’ characteristics. (shrink)

Unavailability of published data and studies focused on young researchers in Europe and research integrity issues reveals that clear understanding and stance on this subject within European area is lacking. Our study provides information on attitudes and experiences of European researchers at early career stages, based on a limited sample of respondents. The study provides both quantitative and qualitative results for the examined issues. The data suggest that awareness and interest of the younger researchers surveyed in research integrity issues is (...) high, however, it is often based on self-initiatives, with many of the respondents not having adequate training or any possibility to obtain it. Our attitude survey conducted within the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers indicates that only 22 % of respondents had an opportunity to obtain relevant training, and that only one third believed that institutions and supervisors regularly paid attention to it. Further, we noted certain differences between disciplines. The study also reveals that many younger researchers felt they faced problems due to the misconduct of their senior colleagues and the existing institutional culture. The results of the study indicate a need for better prevention mechanisms, training and raising awareness activities. Preferably, junior researchers should be given an active role in shaping the integrity culture. It should be noted that the presented results should be considered in the context of the limitations stemming from the small-scale survey. This paper encourages further research activities on research integrity practices to provide stronger evidence on the attitudes and experiences of young researchers in Europe and other parts of the world. (shrink)

It is commonly hypothesized that scientists are more likely to engage in data falsification and fabrication when they are subject to pressures to publish, when they are not restrained by forms of social control, when they work in countries lacking policies to tackle scientific misconduct, and when they are male. Evidence to test these hypotheses, however, is inconclusive due to the difficulties of obtaining unbiased data. Here we report a pre-registered test of these four hypotheses, conducted on papers that were (...) identified in a previous study as containing problematic image duplications through a systematic screening of the journal PLoS ONE. Image duplications were classified into three categories based on their complexity, with category 1 being most likely to reflect unintentional error and category 3 being most likely to reflect intentional fabrication. We tested multiple parameters connected to the hypotheses above with a matched-control paradigm, by collecting two controls for each paper containing duplications. Category 1 duplications were mostly not associated with any of the parameters tested, as was predicted based on the assumption that these duplications were mostly not due to misconduct. Categories 2 and 3, however, exhibited numerous statistically significant associations. Results of univariable and multivariable analyses support the hypotheses that academic culture, peer control, cash-based publication incentives and national misconduct policies might affect scientific integrity. No clear support was found for the “pressures to publish” hypothesis. Female authors were found to be equally likely to publish duplicated images compared to males. Country-level parameters generally exhibited stronger effects than individual-level parameters, because developing countries were significantly more likely to produce problematic image duplications. This suggests that promoting good research practices in all countries should be a priority for the international research integrity agenda. (shrink)