Perspective: research misconduct: the search for a remedy

How can research institutions support responsible supervision and leadership?

Supervisors, PhD candidates and research leaders are expected to be the primary persons responsible for maintaining a high research integrity standards. However, research institutions should support them in this effort, by promoting responsible supervision and leadership practices. Although it is clear that institutions play a crucial role in this, there is a lack of institutional guidelines focusing on these topics. The development of the experience-based guidelines presented in this article consisted of a multi-step, iterative approach. We engaged 16 experts in supervision and research integrity in four workshops to co-create institutional guidelines for responsible supervision and leadership. To revise the guidelines and make them operational, we formed a dedicated working group and consulted experts in the field of supervision. This resulted in three guidelines focusing on what institutions can do to support: responsible supervision, PhD candidates during their PhD trajectory, and responsible leadership. The recommendations focus on the rights and responsibilities of the three targeted stakeholder groups, and institutions' responsibilities for the personal development and well-being of supervisors, PhD candidates and research leaders. The three guidelines can be used by institutions to foster responsible supervision and leadership by supporting researchers to conduct research with integrity.

Superb supervision: A pilot study on training supervisors to convey responsible research practices onto their PhD candidates

One way to strengthen research integrity, is through supervision. According to previous research, a supervisor should be well-versed in responsible research practices (RRPs) and possess the necessary interpersonal skills to convey RRPs. We developed a 3-day pilot training for PhD supervisors that combined RRPs and interpersonal skills. Our aim was to assess: perceptions regarding supervision skills (before and after the pilot) and participants' views on combining RRPs and interpersonal skills. Before and after the pilot, we sent the Research Supervision Quality Evaluation survey to the participating PhD supervisors and their PhD candidates. The pilot was concluded with a focus group where participants deliberated over the combination of training in interpersonal skills and RRPs and whether such training should become compulsory. Both supervisors and PhD candidates were more positive about the supervisor's interpersonal skills and the ability to foster RRPs after the training. Participants were enthusiastic about the training's dual focus but believed that making the training compulsory would be undesirable. The results highlight the potential of RRPs training for supervisors. However, caution is warranted, as the results regard a small sample of volunteering supervisors, underscoring the need for larger programs to foster responsible supervision that are rigorously evaluated.

Article retraction rates in selected MeSH term categories in PubMed published between 2010 and 2020

BACKGROUND

Academic article retractions occur across all disciplines, though few studies have examined the association between research topics and retraction rates.

OBJECTIVES

We assessed and compared the rate of retraction across several important clinical research topics.

METHODS

Information about the number of publications, the number of retractions, the retraction rate, and the time to retraction was collected for articles identified by 15 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms. These articles were published between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2020. The searches took place between 18 September 2021 and 24 October 2021. The MeSH terms were selected based on our clinical experience with the expectation that there will be multiple publications during the timeframe to use for the searches. Additional topics were selected based on the frequency of controversy in the public media and were identified by the Altmetric Top 100 report.

RESULTS

The mean number of publications for all categories was 181,975 ± 332,245; the median number of publications was 67,991 [Q1, Q3; 31951.5, 138,981.5]. The mean number of retractions was 100.3 ± 251.3, and the median number of retractions was 22 [Q1, Q3; 6.5, 53]. The mean time to retraction ranged from 114 days to 1,409.5 days; the median was 857.3 days [Q1, Q3; 684.7, 1098.6], depending on the topic. The various MeSH term categories used in this study had significant differences in retraction rate and time to retraction. The "Neoplasms" category had the highest total number of retractions (993) and one of the highest retraction rates (75.4 per 100,000 publications).

DISCUSSION

All PubMed categories analyzed in this study had retracted articles. The median time to retraction was 857 days. The long delays in some categories could contribute to potentially misleading information which might have adverse effects on clinical decisions in patient care and on research design.

CONCLUSION

Rate of retraction varies across research topics and further studies are needed to explore this relationship.

The Mentor's Role in Fostering Research Integrity Standards Among New Generations of Researchers: A Review of Empirical Studies

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.

Research Integrity Supervision Practices and Institutional Support: A Qualitative Study

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.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10805-022-09468-y.

Ethical Orientation and Research Misconduct Among Business Researchers Under the Condition of Autonomy and Competition

The topics of ethical conduct and governance in academic research in the business field have attracted scientific and public attention. The concern is that research misconduct in organizations such as business schools and universities might result in practitioners, policymakers, and researchers grounding their decisions on biased research results. This study addresses ethical research misconduct by investigating whether the ethical orientation of business researchers is related to the likelihood of research misconduct, such as selective reporting of research findings. We distinguish between deontological and consequentialist ethical orientations and the competition between researchers and investigate the moderating role of their perceived autonomy. Based on global data collected from 1031 business scholars, we find that researchers with a strong deontological ethical orientation are less prone to misconduct. This effect is robust against different levels of perceived autonomy and competition. In contrast, researchers having a consequentialist ethical orientation is positively associated with misconduct in business research. High levels of competition in the research environment reinforce this effect. Our results reveal a potentially toxic combination comprising researchers with a strong consequentialist orientation who are embedded in highly competitive research environments. Our research calls for the development of ethical orientations grounded on maxims rather than anticipated consequences among researchers. We conclude that measures for ethical governance in business schools should consider the ethical orientation that underlies researchers' decision-making and the organizational and institutional environment in which business researchers are embedded.

Researchers' Perceptions of a Responsible Research Climate: A Multi Focus Group Study

The research climate plays a key role in fostering integrity in research. However, little is known about what constitutes a responsible research climate. We investigated academic researchers' perceptions on this through focus group interviews. We recruited researchers from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Amsterdam University Medical Center to participate in focus group discussions that consisted of researchers from similar academic ranks and disciplinary fields. We asked participants to reflect on the characteristics of a responsible research climate, the barriers they perceived and which interventions they thought fruitful to improve the research climate. Discussions were recorded and transcribed at verbatim. We used inductive content analysis to analyse the focus group transcripts. We conducted 12 focus groups with 61 researchers in total. We identified fair evaluation, openness, sufficient time, integrity, trust and freedom to be mentioned as important characteristics of a responsible research climate. Main perceived barriers were lack of support, unfair evaluation policies, normalization of overwork and insufficient supervision of early career researchers. Possible interventions suggested by the participants centered around improving support, discussing expectations and improving the quality of supervision. Some of the elements of a responsible research climate identified by participants are reflected in national and international codes of conduct, such as trust and openness. Although it may seem hard to change the research climate, we believe that the realisation that the research climate is suboptimal should provide the impetus for change informed by researchers' experiences and opinions.

Researchers' perceptions of research misbehaviours: a mixed methods study among academic researchers in Amsterdam

Background

There is increasing evidence that research misbehaviour is common, especially the minor forms. Previous studies on research misbehaviour primarily focused on biomedical and social sciences, and evidence from natural sciences and humanities is scarce. We investigated what academic researchers in Amsterdam perceived to be detrimental research misbehaviours in their respective disciplinary fields.

Methods

We used an explanatory sequential mixed methods design. First, survey participants from four disciplinary fields rated perceived frequency and impact of research misbehaviours from a list of 60. We then combined these into a top five ranking of most detrimental research misbehaviours at the aggregate level, stratified by disciplinary field. Second, in focus group interviews, participants from each academic rank and disciplinary field were asked to reflect on the most relevant research misbehaviours for their disciplinary field. We used participative ranking methodology inducing participants to obtain consensus on which research misbehaviours are most detrimental.

Results

In total, 1080 researchers completed the survey (response rate: 15%) and 61 participated in the focus groups (3 three to 8 eight researchers per group). Insufficient supervision consistently ranked highest in the survey regardless of disciplinary field and the focus groups confirmed this. Important themes in the focus groups were insufficient supervision, sloppy science, and sloppy peer review. Biomedical researchers and social science researchers were primarily concerned with sloppy science and insufficient supervision. Natural sciences and humanities researchers discussed sloppy reviewing and theft of ideas by reviewers, a form of plagiarism. Focus group participants further provided examples of particular research misbehaviours they were confronted with and how these impacted their work as a researcher.

Conclusion

We found insufficient supervision and various forms of sloppy science to score highly on aggregate detrimental impact throughout all disciplinary fields. Researchers from the natural sciences and humanities also perceived nepotism to be of major impact on the aggregate level. The natural sciences regarded fabrication of data of major impact as well. The focus group interviews helped to understand how researchers interpreted ‘insufficient supervision’. Besides, the focus group participants added insight into sloppy science in practice. Researchers from the natural sciences and humanities added new research misbehaviours concerning their disciplinary fields to the list, such as the stealing of ideas before publication. This improves our understanding of research misbehaviour beyond the social and biomedical fields.

How do researchers acquire and develop notions of research integrity? A qualitative study among biomedical researchers in Switzerland

Background

Structured training in research integrity, research ethics and responsible conduct of research is one strategy to reduce research misconduct and strengthen reliability of and trust in scientific evidence. However, how researchers develop their sense of integrity is not fully understood. We examined the factors and circumstances that shape researchers’ understanding of research integrity.

Methods

This study draws insights from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 33 researchers in the life sciences and medicine, representing three seniority levels across five research universities in Switzerland.

Results

The results of this study indicate that early education, moral values inculcated by the family and participation in team sports were the earliest influences on notions of honesty, integrity and fairness among researchers. Researchers’ personality traits, including degree of ambition and internal moral compass, were perceived as critical in determining the importance they attributed to conducting research with high ethical standards. Positive and negative experiences in early research life also had a significant impact on their views regarding research integrity. Two thirds of the study participants had not received any formal training in research integrity. Their awareness of training opportunities at their institutions was also limited.

Conclusion

Age-appropriate development of honesty and integrity starts as early as primary education. Research integrity training should be offered from the bachelors level and continue throughout the entire professional life of researchers. Although these courses may not imbue researchers with integrity itself, they are essential to improving the research culture, reinforcing integrity norms, and discouraging researchers who lack personal integrity from engaging in research misconduct.

Research misconduct, NSF v NIH: Its nature and prevalence and the impact of their respective methods of investigation and adjudication

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have established separate administrative mechanisms for investigation and adjudication of alleged research misconduct. This report compares research misconduct at NSF and NIH and the possible effects of their respective methods of investigation and adjudication. Notable and paradoxical findings were identified: NIH supported four times the number of grants as NSF, yet NSF reviewed 2.5 times the number of research misconduct reports. NSF faculty were two-times more likely to be found guilty (88%) than faculty at NIH (42%). 83.6% of NSF offenders were guilty of plagiarism, vs. 4.8% at NIH. NSF trainees made up 6% of the guilty, vs. 42% at NIH. These findings are most likely related to the nature of their respective sciences, scientists, and the nature of their publications. Investigative policies and procedures are quite similar at these two agencies with the exception of the subpoena power available to the NSF's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) where it would be infrequently utilized in investigations of its predominant offense, plagiarism. However, it could prove useful if made available to the NIH Office of Research Integrity (ORI) for investigations of fabrication/falsification, its most common offense. Federal criteria for prosecution should be modified to increase the likelihood of prosecution of serious offenders referred by ORI.

Assessing Trustworthiness in Research: A Pilot Study on CV Verification

When scholars express concern about trust in science, they often focus on whether the public trusts research findings. This study explores a different dimension of trust and examines whether and how frequently researchers misrepresent their research accomplishments when applying for a faculty position. We collected all of the vitae submitted for faculty positions at a large research university for 1 year and reviewed a 10% sample for accuracy. Of the 180 applicants whose vitae we analyzed, 141 (78%) claimed to have at least one publication, and 79 of these 141 (56%) listed at least one publication that was unverifiable or inaccurate in a self-promoting way. We discuss the nature and implications of our findings, and suggest best practices for both applicants and search committees in presenting and reviewing vitae.

Factors associated with scientific misconduct and questionable research practices in health professions education

INTRODUCTION

Engaging in scientific misconduct and questionable research practices (QRPs) is a noted problem across fields, including health professions education (HPE). To mitigate these practices, other disciplines have enacted strategies based on researcher characteristics and practice factors. Thus, to inform HPE, this study seeks to determine which researcher characteristics and practice factors, if any, might explain the frequency of irresponsible research practices.

METHOD

In 2017, a cross-sectional survey of HPE researchers was conducted. The survey included 66 items adapted from three published surveys: two published QRP surveys and a publication pressure scale. The outcome variable was a self-reported misconduct score, which is a weighted mean score for each respondent on all misconduct and QRP items. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics, reliability and correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression modelling.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In total, 590 researchers completed the survey. Results from the final regression model indicated that researcher age had a negative association with the misconduct score (b = -0.01, β = -0.22, t = -2.91, p <0.05), suggesting that older researchers tended to report less misconduct. On the other hand, those with more publications had higher misconduct scores (b = 0.001, β = 0.17, t = 3.27, p < 0.05) and, compared with researchers in the region of North America, researchers in Asia tended to have higher misconduct scores (b = 0.21, β = 0.12, t = 2.84, p < 0.01). In addition, compared with those who defined their work role as clinician, those who defined their role as researcher tended to have higher misconduct scores (b = 0.12, β = 0.13, t = 2.15, p < 0.05). Finally, publication pressure emerged as the strongest individual predictor of misconduct (b = 0.20, β = 0.34, t = 7.82, p < 0.01); the greater the publication pressure, the greater the reported misconduct. Overall, the explanatory variables accounted for 21% of the variance in the misconduct score, with publication pressure accounting for 10% of the variance in the outcome, above and beyond the other explanatory variables. Although correlational, these findings suggest several researcher characteristics and practice factors that could be targeted to address scientific misconduct and QRPs in HPE.

The Possibility of Systematic Research Fraud Targeting Under-Studied Human Genes: Causes, Consequences, and Potential Solutions

A major reason for biomarker failure is the selection of candidate biomarkers based on inaccurate or incorrect published results. Incorrect research results leading to the selection of unproductive biomarker candidates are largely considered to stem from unintentional research errors. The additional possibility that biomarker research may be actively misdirected by research fraud has been given comparatively little consideration. This review discusses what we believe to be a new threat to biomarker research, namely, the possible systematic production of fraudulent gene knockdown studies that target under-studied human genes. We describe how fraudulent papers may be produced in series by paper mills using what we have described as a 'theme and variations' model, which could also be considered a form of salami slicing. We describe features of these single-gene knockdown publications that may allow them to evade detection by journal editors, peer reviewers, and readers. We then propose a number of approaches to facilitate their detection, including improved awareness of the features of publications constructed in series, broader requirements to post submitted manuscripts to preprint servers, and the use of semi-automated literature screening tools. These approaches may collectively improve the detection of fraudulent studies that might otherwise impede future biomarker research.

Perceptions of research integrity climate differ between academic ranks and disciplinary fields: Results from a survey among academic researchers in Amsterdam

Breaches of research integrity have shocked the academic community. Initially explanations were sought at the level of individual researchers but over time increased recognition emerged of the important role that the research integrity climate may play in influencing researchers' (mis)behavior. In this study we aim to assess whether researchers from different academic ranks and disciplinary fields experience the research integrity climate differently. We sent an online questionnaire to academic researchers in Amsterdam using the Survey of Organizational Research Climate. Bonferroni corrected mean differences showed that junior researchers (PhD students, postdocs and assistant professors) perceive the research integrity climate more negatively than senior researchers (associate and full professors). Junior researchers note that their supervisors are less committed to talk about key research integrity principles compared to senior researchers (MD = -.39, CI = -.55, -.24). PhD students perceive more competition and suspicion among colleagues (MD = -.19, CI = -.35, -.05) than associate and full professors. We found that researchers from the natural sciences overall express a more positive perception of the research integrity climate. Researchers from social sciences as well as from the humanities perceive less fairness of their departments' expectations in terms of publishing and acquiring funding compared to natural sciences and biomedical sciences (MD = -.44, CI = -.74, -.15; MD = -.36, CI = -.61, -.11). Results suggest that department leaders in the humanities and social sciences should do more to set fairer expectations for their researchers and that senior scientists should ensure junior researchers are socialized into research integrity practices and foster a climate in their group where suspicion among colleagues has no place.

Scientists Still Behaving Badly? A Survey Within Industry and Universities

Little is known about research misconduct within industry and how it compares to universities, even though a lot of biomedical research is performed by-or in collaboration with-commercial entities. Therefore, we sent an e-mail invitation to participate in an anonymous computer-based survey to all university researchers having received a biomedical research grant or scholarship from one of the two national academic research funders of Belgium between 2010 and 2014, and to researchers working in large biomedical companies or spin-offs in Belgium. The validated survey included questions about various types of research misconduct committed by respondents themselves and observed among their colleagues in the last three years. Prevalences of misconduct were compared between university and industry respondents using binary logistic regression models, with adjustments for relevant personal characteristics, and with significance being accepted for p < 0.01. The survey was sent to 1766 people within universities and an estimated 255 people from industry. Response rates were 43 (767/1766) and 48% (123/255), and usable information was available for 617 and 100 respondents, respectively. In general, research misconduct was less likely to be reported by industry respondents compared to university respondents. Significant differences were apparent for one admitted action (gift authorship) and three observed actions (plagiarism, gift authorship, and circumventing animal-subjects research requirements), always with lower prevalences for industry compared to universities, except for plagiarism. This survey, based on anonymous self-report, shows that research misconduct occurs to a substantial degree among biomedical researchers from both industry and universities.

In Their Own Words: Research Misconduct from the Perspective of Researchers in Malaysian Universities

Published data and studies on research misconduct, which focuses on researchers in Malaysia, is still lacking, therefore, we decided that this was an area for investigation. This study provides qualitative results for the examined issues through series of in-depth interviews with 21 researchers and lecturers in various universities in Malaysia. The aims of this study were to investigate the researchers' opinions and perceptions regarding what they considered to be research misconduct, their experience with such misconduct, and the factors that contribute to research misconduct. Our findings suggest that the most common research misconducts that are currently being witnessed in Malaysian universities are plagiarism and authorship disputes, however, researchers seldom report incidents of research misconduct because it takes too much time, effort and work to report them, and some are just afraid of repercussions when they do report it. This suggests possible loopholes in the monitoring system, which may allow some researchers to bypass it and engage in misconduct. This study also highlights the structural and individual factors as the most influential factors when it comes to research misconduct besides organizational, situational and cultural factors. Finally, this study highlights the concerns of all participants regarding the 'publish or perish' pressure that they believe would lead to a hostile working environment, thus enhancing research misconduct, as researchers tend to think about their own performance rather than that of whole team or faculty. Consequently this weakens the interpersonal relationships among researchers, which may compromise the teaching and supervision of junior researchers and research students.

Whistle blowing and research integrity: Potential remedy for research misconduct in Malaysian institutions of higher education

This study found that less than half of the respondents are willing to blow the whistle. The results reveal that a lack of protection with regard to the whistleblower's identity, the tedious investigative process, and the notion of avoiding confrontation, which is more apparent in Asian cultures as compared to the West, are among the reasons why individuals who witnessed misconduct chose to remain silent. Adhering to the Asian cultural upbringing where the young must respect the old, those of lower rank must obey those with higher authority, and subordinates do not question the actions of their superior, has become a norm even in the working environment. Therefore, emphasize the need for better protection for whistleblowers including using experienced individuals with a research ethics background to handle allegations from whistleblowers. In addition, established guidelines and procedures for whistleblowers with regard to voicing their allegations against colleagues engaged in research misconduct is still lacking or, to a certain extent, is still unknown to researchers. Thus, the concern indicates a need for institutions to create awareness among researchers regarding the existing platform for whistleblowers, or to develop a systematic and clear procedure which is reliable and independent to promote professionalism in academia.

Differing Perceptions Concerning Research Integrity Between Universities and Industry: A Qualitative Study

Despite the ever increasing collaboration between industry and universities, the previous empirical studies on research integrity and misconduct excluded participants of biomedical industry. Hence, there is a lack of empirical data on how research managers and biomedical researchers active in industry perceive the issues of research integrity and misconduct, and whether or not their perspectives differ from those of researchers and research managers active in universities. If various standards concerning research integrity and misconduct are upheld between industry and universities, this might undermine research collaborations. Therefore we performed a qualitative study by conducting 22 semi-structured interviews in order to investigate and compare the perspectives and attitudes concerning the issues of research integrity and misconduct of research managers and biomedical researchers active in industry and universities. Our study showed clear discrepancies between both groups. Diverse strategies in order to manage research misconduct and to stimulate research integrity were observed. Different definitions of research misconduct were given, indicating that similar actions are judged heterogeneously. There were also differences at an individual level, whether the interviewees were active in industry or universities. Overall, the management of research integrity proves to be a difficult exercise, due to many diverse perspectives on several essential elements connected to research integrity and misconduct. A management policy that is not in line with the vision of the biomedical researchers and research managers is at risk of being inefficient.

The Professionalism and Integrity in Research Program: Description and Preliminary Outcomes

Violations of rules and regulations in research can cause significant problems for human participants, animal subjects, data integrity, institutions, and investigators. The Professionalism and Integrity in Research Program (PI Program) provides remediation training that addresses the root causes of violations of rules and regulations in research. Through assessments, a three-day workshop, and follow-up coaching calls, the PI Program teaches evidence-based decision-making strategies designed to help researchers to compensate for bias, uncertainty, and work-related stress, and foster the skills needed to oversee research projects in today's complex regulatory environments. Across its first three years (2013-2015), the program trained 39 researchers from 24 different institutions in the United States. Participant evaluations of the program's faculty and workshop content were highly positive (4.7-4.8 and 4.5-4.6, respectively, on a 5-point scale). Preliminary program outcome assessment using validated measures of professional decision making and cognitive distortions in a pre- and postworkshop design indicated significant improvements. A follow-up survey of participants found statistically significant increases in a variety of target behaviors, including training research staff members to foster compliance and research quality, using standard operating procedures to support compliance and research integrity, performing self-audits of research operations, reducing job stressors, actively overseeing the work of the research team, and seeking help when experiencing uncertainty. Assessment of the PI Program was conducted with modest sample sizes, yet evaluation, outcome assessment, and self-reported survey data provided statistically significant evidence of effectiveness in achieving program goals.

Are You Sure You Want to Do That? Fostering the Responsible Conduct of Medical Education Research

Engaging in questionable research practices (QRPs) is a noted problem across many disciplines, including medical education. While QRPs are rarely discussed in the context of medical education, that does not mean that medical education researchers are immune. Therefore, the authors seek to raise medical educators' awareness of the responsible conduct of research (RCR) and call the community to action before QRPs negatively affect the field.The authors define QRPs and introduce examples that could easily happen in medical education research because of vulnerabilities particular to the field. The authors suggest that efforts in research, including medical education research, should focus on facilitating a change in the culture of research to foster RCR, and that these efforts should make explicit both the individual and system factors that ultimately influence researcher behavior. They propose a set of approaches within medical education training initiatives to foster such a culture: empowering research mentors as role models, open airing of research conduct dilemmas and infractions, protecting whistle blowers, establishing mechanisms for facilitating responsibly conducted research, and rewarding responsible researchers.The authors recommend that efforts at culture change be focused on the growing graduate programs, fellowships, and faculty academies in medical education to ensure that RCR training is an integral component for both students and faculty. They encourage medical education researchers to think creatively about solutions to the challenges they face and to act together as an international community to avoid wasting research efforts, damaging careers, and stunting medical education research through QRPs.

Responsible Epidemiologic Research Practice: a guideline developed by a working group of the Netherlands Epidemiological Society

OBJECTIVES

To develop a guideline on Responsible Epidemiologic Research Practice that will increase value and transparency, increase the accountability of the epidemiologists, and reduce research waste.

SETTING

A working group of the Netherland Epidemiological Society was given the task of developing a guideline that would meet these objectives. Several publications about the need to prevent Detrimental Research Practices triggered this work. Among these were a series in the Lancet on research waste and a subsequent series on transparency in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. The reputation and trust in epidemiologic research is still high, and the Netherlands Epidemiological Society wishes to keep it that way. The guideline deals with how epidemiologic research should be conducted, archived, and disclosed. It does not deal with the more technical aspects, such as required sample size, choice of study design, and so forth. The guideline describes each step in the process of conducting an epidemiologic study, from the first idea to the ultimate publication and beyond.

METHODS

The working group reviewed the literature on responsible research conduct, including the various existing codes of conduct. It applied the general principles from these codes to the elements of an epidemiologic study and formulated specific recommendations for each of these. Next step was to draft the guideline. Preceding the 2016 annual national epidemiology conference in Wageningen, a preconference was organized to discuss the draft guideline and to assess support. Support was clearly present, and the provided recommendations were incorporated into the draft guideline. In March 2017, a draft version of the guideline was sent to all 1,100 members of the society with the request to review and provide comments. All received responses were positive, and some minor additions were made. The Responsible Epidemiologic Research Practice guideline has now been approved by the board of the Netherlands Epidemiological Society.

CONCLUSION

With the Responsible Epidemiologic Research Practice guideline, we hope to contribute to better research practices in epidemiology but perhaps also in adjacent disciplines.

Responsible conduct of research: enhancing local opportunities

INTRODUCTION

Research integrity is the foundation of credible research and a pre-requisite for a successful academic research environment. Lately, a lot of revelations of fraud and other unacceptable behaviour in research have been highly publicized in scientific journals and mass media. Whereas institutions in developed countries have developed guidelines and regulations to ensure responsible conduct of research and appropriately deal with cases of research misconduct, low- and middle-income countries seem to be lagging behind. In Uganda, there seems to be lack of coordinated efforts to address the problem of research misconduct both at the national and institutional level.

OBJECTIVE

To propose a framework for fostering scientific integrity and deterring misconduct in research in Ugandan research and academic institutions.

METHODS

A review of literature on scientific integrity, scientific misconduct, responsible conduct of research, and international ethical guidelines was done.

RESULTS

Basing on the 2012 Inter-Academy Council policy report, initiatives to promote responsible conduct of research in Ugandan research and academic institutions are proposed.

CONCLUSION

With the proposed framework, an honest and trustworthy research enterprise in Uganda based on principles of scientific integrity is envisioned.

Experiences, behaviors, and perceptions of registered nurses regarding research ethics and misconduct

BACKGROUND

Nurses engaging in research are held to research ethics standards.

RESEARCH AIM

Examine experiences, behaviors, and perceptions of nurses in Israel regarding research ethics and explore possible related factors.

RESEARCH DESIGN

An original investigator-designed self-administered questionnaire measured five variables: (a) ethics in research, (b) encountered research misconduct during the course of one's studies, (c) the inclination to fabricate data, (d) the inclination to select or omit data, and (e) knowledge of research misconduct in the workplace. Additionally, demographic data were collected.

PARTICIPANTS AND RESEARCH CONTEXT

The questionnaire was completed by 151 Israeli registered nurses. 10.2% hold a PhD, 34 % hold an MA, 42.2% hold a BA, and 13.6% with no academic degree.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The study was approved by the University's ethics committee; anonymity and consent of the respondents were respected.

FINDINGS

Registered nurses' level of studies achieved was significantly associated with a lower inclination to fabricate data, with one exception-PhD nurses were more inclined to fabricate data than nurses with a Master's degree. A trend was found in which a higher level of studies is associated with higher knowledge of research misconduct in the workplace.

DISCUSSION

Results indicate that nurses' perceptions of research ethics change throughout their academic studies, indicating a positive influence of level of studies, research experience, and work experience on ethics perceptions. Nevertheless, PhD nurses showed a greater inclination to actually select, omit, or even fabricate data than MA nurses. This may be related to pressure to publish.

CONCLUSION

PhD nursing programs should include ethics training. Academic faculty members should serve as role models regarding research integrity. Research ethics deserves further emphasis on all levels of nurse education in Israel, as well as in the nurses' code of ethics and related documents. This may positively impact ethical research practices.

Neutralising fair credit: factors that influence unethical authorship practices

This study experimentally tests whether the techniques of neutralisation as identified in the criminal justice literature influence graduate student willingness to engage in questionable research practices (QRPs). Our results indicate that US-born graduate students are more willing to add an undeserved coauthor if the person who requests it is a faculty member in the student's department as opposed to a fellow student. Students are most likely to add an undeserving author if a faculty member is also their advisor. In addition, four techniques of neutralisation, 'diffusion of responsibility', 'defence of necessity', 'advantageous comparison' and 'euphemistic labelling', are associated with student willingness to act unethically. Participants who had received responsible conduct of research training were no less likely to commit the violation than those who had not. Knowledge of these influencing factors for QRPs will provide for opportunities to improve research ethics education strategies and materials.

Retractions in cancer research: a systematic survey

Background

The annual number of retracted publications in the scientific literature is rapidly increasing. The objective of this study was to determine the frequency and reason for retraction of cancer publications and to determine how journals in the cancer field handle retracted articles.

Methods

We searched three online databases (MEDLINE, Embase, The Cochrane Library) from database inception until 2015 for retracted journal publications related to cancer research. For each article, the reason for retraction was categorized as plagiarism, duplicate publication, fraud, error, authorship issues, or ethical issues. Accessibility of the retracted article was defined as intact, removed, or available but with a watermark over each page. Descriptive data was collected on each retracted article including number of citations, journal name and impact factor, study design, and time between publication and retraction. The publications were screened in duplicated and two reviewers extracted and categorized data.

Results

Following database search and article screening, we identified 571 retracted cancer publications. The majority (76.4%) of cancer retractions were issued in the most recent decade, with 16.6 and 6.7% of the retractions in the prior two decades respectively. Retractions were issued by journals with impact factors ranging from 0 (discontinued) to 55.8. The average impact factor was 5.4 (median 3.54, IQR 1.8-5.5). On average, a retracted article was cited 45 times (median 18, IQR 6-51), with a range of 0-742. Reasons for retraction include plagiarism (14.4%), fraud (28.4%), duplicate publication (18.2%), error (24.2%), authorship issues (3.9%), and ethical issues (2.1%). The reason for retraction was not stated in 9.8% of cases. Twenty-nine percent of retracted articles remain available online in their original form.

Conclusions

Retractions in cancer research are increasing in frequency at a similar rate to all biomedical research retractions. Cancer retractions are largely due to academic misconduct. Consequences to cancer patients, the public at large, and the research community can be substantial and should be addressed with future research. Despite the implications of this important issue, some cancer journals currently fall short of the current guidelines for clearly stating the reason for retraction and identifying the publication as retracted.

Life After Research Misconduct

Research misconduct is a serious violation of a scientific community's ethical standards. Scientists who commit research misconduct typically face corrective actions from employers and funding agencies, as well as significant professional stigma. Unfortunately, there is little systematic data about the post-misconduct career of these guilty parties. Through a review of Office of Research Integrity (ORI) case summaries, I identified a pool of 284 researchers who engaged in research misconduct and were subject to ORI corrective actions. To assess the prevalence of post-misconduct research activities for these scientists, I searched publicly available databases and online resources for evidence of post-misconduct research activities (such as publications and federal research support). The data demonstrate that researchers often receive second chances as researchers, with indicators of post-misconduct research activities identified for 134 (47.18%) of the offending researchers. In addition, those researchers have received more than US$123 million in federal support for their post-misconduct research efforts.

Trouble in Paradise: Problems in Academic Research Co-authoring

Scholars and policy-makers have expressed concerns about the crediting of coauthors in research publications. Most such problems fall into one of two categories, excluding deserving contributors or including undeserving ones. But our research shows that there is no consensus on "deserving" or on what type of contribution suffices for co-authorship award. Our study uses qualitative data, including interviews with 60 US academic science or engineering researchers in 14 disciplines in a set of geographically distributed research-intensive universities. We also employ data from 161 website posts provided by 93 study participants, again US academic scientists. We examine a variety of factors related to perceived unwarranted exclusion from co-author credit and unwarranted inclusion, providing an empirically-informed conceptual model to explain co-author crediting outcomes. Determinants of outcomes include characteristics of disciplines and fields, institutional work culture, power dynamics and team-specific norms and decision processes.

Personality Traits Are Associated with Research Misbehavior in Dutch Scientists: A Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND

Personality influences decision making and ethical considerations. Its influence on the occurrence of research misbehavior has never been studied. This study aims to determine the association between personality traits and self-reported questionable research practices and research misconduct. We hypothesized that narcissistic, Machiavellianistic and psychopathic traits as well as self-esteem are associated with research misbehavior.

METHODS

Included in this cross-sectional study design were 535 Dutch biomedical scientists (response rate 65%) from all hierarchical layers of 4 university medical centers in the Netherlands. We used validated personality questionnaires such as the Dark Triad (narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism), Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale, the Publication Pressure Questionnaire (PPQ), and also demographic and job-specific characteristics to investigate the association of personality traits with a composite research misbehavior severity score.

FINDINGS

Machiavellianism was positively associated (beta 1.28, CI 1.06-1.53) with self-reported research misbehavior, while narcissism, psychopathy and self-esteem were not. Exploratory analysis revealed that narcissism and research misconduct were more severe among persons in higher academic ranks (i.e., professors) (p<0.01 and p<0.001, respectively), and self-esteem scores and publication pressure were lower (p<0.001 and p<0.01, respectively) as compared to postgraduate PhD fellows.

CONCLUSIONS

Machiavellianism may be a risk factor for research misbehaviour. Narcissism and research misbehaviour were more prevalent among biomedical scientists in higher academic positions. These results suggest that personality has an impact on research behavior and should be taken into account in fostering responsible conduct of research.

Research practices and assessment of research misconduct

This article discusses the responsible conduct of research, questionable research practices, and research misconduct. Responsible conduct of research is often defined in terms of a set of abstract, normative principles, professional standards, and ethics in doing research. In order to accommodate the normative principles of scientific research, the professional standards, and a researcher’s moral principles, transparent research practices can serve as a framework for responsible conduct of research. We suggest a “prune-and-add” project structure to enhance transparency and, by extension, responsible conduct of research. Questionable research practices are defined as practices that are detrimental to the research process. The prevalence of questionable research practices remains largely unknown, and reproducibility of findings has been shown to be problematic. Questionable practices are discouraged by transparent practices because practices that arise from them will become more apparent to scientific peers. Most effective might be preregistrations of research design, hypotheses, and analyses, which reduce particularism of results by providing an a priori research scheme. Research misconduct has been defined as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism (FFP), which is clearly the worst type of research practice. Despite it being clearly wrong, it can be approached from a scientific and legal perspective. The legal perspective sees research misconduct as a form of white-collar crime. The scientific perspective seeks to answer the following question: “Were results invalidated because of the misconduct?” We review how misconduct is typically detected, how its detection can be improved, and how prevalent it might be. Institutions could facilitate detection of data fabrication and falsification by implementing data auditing. Nonetheless, the effect of misconduct is pervasive: many retracted articles are still cited after the retraction has been issued.

Main points

Researchers systematically evaluate their own conduct as more responsible than colleagues, but not as responsible as they would like.

Transparent practices, facilitated by the Open Science Framework, help embody scientific norms that promote responsible conduct.

Questionable research practices harm the research process and work counter to the generally accepted scientific norms, but are hard to detect.

Research misconduct requires active scrutiny of the research community because editors and peer-reviewers do not pay adequate attention to detecting this. Tips are given on how to improve your detection of potential problems.

Research misconduct: time for a re-think?

The incidence of research misconduct appears to be increasing, drawing attention in the general media and academic literature. Concerns have been expressed about probable under-reporting, harms arising, lack of an agreed international definition, welfare of whistleblowers and the adequacy of the investigation processes and any subsequent sanctions. A fully satisfactory approach to prevention, detection, investigation and adjudication has yet to emerge. While the definition of research misconduct contained in the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research is comprehensive, universities and other research institutions at times struggle in their task of investigating and adjudicating allegations of research misconduct. A more centralised, independent process of oversight and monitoring of this role played by the universities and institutions would help support those institutions and help maintain community confidence in the research endeavour.

Are Ethics Training Programs Improving? A Meta-Analytic Review of Past and Present Ethics Instruction in the Sciences

Given the growing public concern and attention placed on cases of research misconduct, government agencies and research institutions have increased their efforts to develop and improve ethics education programs for scientists. The present study sought to assess the impact of these increased efforts by sampling empirical studies published since the year 2000. Studies published prior to 2000 examined in other meta-analytic work were also included to provide a baseline for assessing gains in ethics training effectiveness over time. In total,this quantitative review consisted of 66 empirical studies, 106 ethics courses, 150 effect sizes, and 10,069 training participants. Overall, the findings indicated that ethics instruction resulted in sizable benefits to participants and has improved considerably within the last decade. A number of specific findings also emerged regarding moderators of instructional effectiveness. Recommendations are discussed for improving the development, delivery, and evaluation of ethics instruction in the sciences.

No One Likes a Snitch

Whistleblowers remain essential as complainants in allegations of research misconduct. Frequently internal to the research team, they are poorly protected from acts of retribution, which may deter the reporting of misconduct. In order to perform their important role, whistleblowers must be treated fairly. Draft regulations for whistleblower protection were published for public comment almost a decade ago but never issued (Dahlberg 2013). In the face of the growing challenge of research fraud, we suggest vigorous steps, to include: organizational responsibility to certify the accuracy of research including audit, required whistleblower action in the face of imminent or grave harm to subjects, strengthened legal protections against retaliation including prompt enactment of Federal whistleblower protections and consideration of criminalizing the most egregious cases of research misconduct.

Unknown unknowns in biomedical research: does an inability to deal with ambiguity contribute to issues of irreproducibility?

The credibility and consequent sustainability of the biomedical research "ecosystem" is in jeopardy, in part due to an inability to reproduce data from the peer-reviewed literature. Despite obvious and relatively inexpensive solutions to improve reproducibility-ensuring that experimental reagents, specifically cancer cell lines and antibodies, are authenticated/validated before use and that best practices in statistical usage are incorporated into the design, analysis, and reporting of experiments-these are routinely ignored, a reflection of hubris and a comfort with the status quo on the part of many investigators. New guidelines for the peer review of publications and grant applications introduced in the past year, while well-intended, lack the necessary consequences, e.g., denial of funding, that would result in sustained improvements when scientific rigor is lacking and/or transparency is, at best, opaque. An additional factor contributing to irreproducibility is a reductionist mindset that prioritizes certainty in research outcomes over the ambiguity intrinsic to biological systems that is often reflected in "unknown unknowns". This has resulted in a tendency towards codifying "rules" that can provide "yes-no" outcomes that represent a poor substitute for the intellectual challenge and skepticism that leads to an awareness and consideration of "unknown unknowns". When acknowledged as potential causes of unexpected experimental outcomes, these can often transition into the "knowns" that facilitate positive, disruptive innovation in biomedical research like the human microbiome. Changes in investigator mindset, both in terms of validating reagents and embracing ambiguity, are necessary to aid in reducing issues with reproducibility.

Expanding the scope of responsible conduct of research instruction

We argue that responsible conduct research (RCR) instruction should be extended beyond students and trainees funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or National Science Foundation (NSF) to include all students, trainees, faculty, and research staff involved in research. Extending the scope of RCR instruction can help institutions develop and maintain an environment that promotes ethical research conduct. Universities and scientific organizations have objected to expanding the scope of RCR instruction on the grounds that it would be a major undertaking that would require the expenditure of additional institutional resources. We argue, however, that expanding the scope of RCR instruction can be done efficiently without placing undue burdens on institutions.

Misconduct Policies, Academic Culture and Career Stage, Not Gender or Pressures to Publish, Affect Scientific Integrity

The honesty and integrity of scientists is widely believed to be threatened by pressures to publish, unsupportive research environments, and other structural, sociological and psychological factors. Belief in the importance of these factors has inspired major policy initiatives, but evidence to support them is either non-existent or derived from self-reports and other sources that have known limitations. We used a retrospective study design to verify whether risk factors for scientific misconduct could predict the occurrence of retractions, which are usually the consequence of research misconduct, or corrections, which are honest rectifications of minor mistakes. Bibliographic and personal information were collected on all co-authors of papers that have been retracted or corrected in 2010-2011 (N=611 and N=2226 papers, respectively) and authors of control papers matched by journal and issue (N=1181 and N=4285 papers, respectively), and were analysed with conditional logistic regression. Results, which avoided several limitations of past studies and are robust to different sampling strategies, support the notion that scientific misconduct is more likely in countries that lack research integrity policies, in countries where individual publication performance is rewarded with cash, in cultures and situations were mutual criticism is hampered, and in the earliest phases of a researcher's career. The hypothesis that males might be prone to scientific misconduct was not supported, and the widespread belief that pressures to publish are a major driver of misconduct was largely contradicted: high-impact and productive researchers, and those working in countries in which pressures to publish are believed to be higher, are less-likely to produce retracted papers, and more likely to correct them. Efforts to reduce and prevent misconduct, therefore, might be most effective if focused on promoting research integrity policies, improving mentoring and training, and encouraging transparent communication amongst researchers.

The enemy has passed through the gate

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to highlight the potential role that the so-called “toxic triangle” (Padilla et al., 2007) can play in undermining the processes around effectiveness. It is the interaction between leaders, organisational members, and the environmental context in which those interactions occur that has the potential to generate dysfunctional behaviours and processes. The paper seeks to set out a set of issues that would seem to be worthy of further consideration within the Journal and which deal with the relationships between organisational effectiveness and the threats from insiders.

Design/methodology/approach

– The paper adopts a systems approach to the threats from insiders and the manner in which it impacts on organisation effectiveness. The ultimate goal of the paper is to stimulate further debate and discussion around the issues.

Findings

– The paper adds to the discussions around effectiveness by highlighting how senior managers can create the conditions in which failure can occur through the erosion of controls, poor decision making, and the creation of a culture that has the potential to generate failure. Within this setting, insiders can serve to trigger a series of failures by their actions and for which the controls in place are either ineffective or have been by-passed as a result of insider knowledge.

Research limitations/implications

– The issues raised in this paper need to be tested empirically as a means of providing a clear evidence base in support of their relationships with the generation of organisational ineffectiveness.

Practical implications

– The paper aims to raise awareness and stimulate thinking by practising managers around the role that the “toxic triangle” of issues can play in creating the conditions by which organisations can incubate the potential for crisis.

Originality/value

– The paper seeks to bring together a disparate body of published work within the context of “organisational effectiveness” and sets out a series of dark characteristics that organisations need to consider if they are to avoid failure. The paper argues the case that effectiveness can be a fragile construct and that the mechanisms that generate failure also need to be actively considered when discussing what effectiveness means in practice.

Predicting self-reported research misconduct and questionable research practices in university students using an augmented Theory of Planned Behavior

This study examined the utility of the Theory of Planned Behavior model, augmented by descriptive norms and justifications, for predicting self-reported research misconduct and questionable research practices in university students. A convenience sample of 205 research active Western Australian university students (47 male, 158 female, ages 18-53 years, M = 22, SD = 4.78) completed an online survey. There was a low level of engagement in research misconduct, with approximately one in seven students reporting data fabrication and one in eight data falsification. Path analysis and model testing in LISREL supported a parsimonious two step mediation model, providing good fit to the data. After controlling for social desirability, the effect of attitudes, subjective norms, descriptive norms and perceived behavioral control on student engagement in research misconduct and questionable research practices was mediated by justifications and then intention. This revised augmented model accounted for a substantial 40.8% of the variance in student engagement in research misconduct and questionable research practices, demonstrating its predictive utility. The model can be used to target interventions aimed at reducing student engagement in research misconduct and questionable research practices.