Promoting Research Integrity In A Global Environment

Tony Mayer, Nicholas Steneck

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9789814340977
• eBook ISBN: 9789814397025
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

Globalisation has become a rewarding but challenging fact of life for scientific and scholarly researchers. Intellectually, they work with shared understandings of their areas of research and research methods. Professionally, responsibility and best practices are subject to many different rules and standards that vary across disciplines, countries, and cultures. They know how to measure and study the objects of their research but are often less sure of what constitutes the responsible practice of research or research integrity.

The World Conferences on Research Integrity provide a forum for an international group of researchers, research administrators from funding agencies and similar bodies, research organisations performing research, universities and policy makers to discuss and make recommendations on ways to improve, harmonise, publicise, and make operationally effective international policies for the responsible conduct of research. The second such conference, held in Singapore in July 2010, focused on challenges and responses. Where is integrity in research today most significantly challenged and what is being done to address these challenges? This volume brings together a selection of presentations and key guidelines and statements emerging from the Conference.

Contents:

• Section I: Welcomes:
  • Introduction
  • Opening Address by the Minister for Education and Second Minister for Defence (Ng Eng Hen)
  • Welcome by the President of Nanyang Technological University (Su Guaning)
  • Welcome by the Chairman of A*STAR (Lim Chuan Poh)
  • Welcome by the Vice President for Research Strategy, National University of Singapore (Seeram Ramakrishna)
  • Welcome by the President of Singapore Management University (Howard Hunter)
• Section II: Research Integrity Structures:
  • Developing Research Integrity Structures: Nationally and Internationally (Christine C Boesz)
  • Stakeholder Leadership in Addressing Research Integrity Challenges (Howard Alper)
  • Research Integrity Challenges — A Singapore Perspective (Lee Eng Hin)
  • European Science Foundation and Research Integrity (Ian Halliday)
  • France: How to Improve a Decentralized, Ambiguous National System (Jean-Pierre Alix)
  • Research Integrity in the Canadian Context (Ronald Heslegrave)
  • Research Integrity in New Zealand (Sylvia Rumball & John O'Neill)
  • Challenges Encountered by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences When Introducing Concepts for Promoting Scientific Integrity (Emilio Bossi)
  • The Integrity of Researchers in Japan: Will Enforcement Replace Responsibility? (Tohru Masui)
  • National, Institutional and International Approaches to Research Integrity: An Australian Perspective (Ren Yi)
  • Finland: How to Revise National Research Integrity Guidelines in the Changing International Landscape? (Eero Vuorio)
  • Acting After Learning in Europe (Dirk G de Hen)
  • Views on Research Integrity in the Commonwealth of Independent State (Boris Yudin)
• Section III: Research Misconduct:
  • The Black, the White and the Grey Areas: Towards an International and Interdisciplinary Definition of Scientific Misconduct (Daniele Fanelli)
  • Keynote Address: Promoting Integrity in Research (David L Vaux)
  • Does Peer Review Work as a Self-Policing Mechanism in Preventing Misconduct: A Case Study of a Serial Plagiarist (Ben R Martin)
  • Scientific Falsifications in and out of Science (Edward P Kruglyakov)
  • The Need for Greater Attention Regarding Research Integrity in Mexico (José A Cuellar)
• Section IV: Codes of Conduct:
  • A Framework for Examining Codes of Conduct on Research Integrity (Melissa S Anderson & Marta A Shaw)
  • Dilemmas for Ethical Guidelines for the Sciences (Matthias Kaiser)
  • Levels of Responsibility (John Sulston)
  • The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (Pieter J D Drenth)
  • A Report from the European Forum for Good Clinical Practice (Frank Wells)
  • Lessons from 17 Years with National Guidelines for Research Ethics in Norway (Ragnvald Kalleberg)
  • Society for Scientific Values: A Movement to Promote Ethics in the Conduct of Science (Ashima Anand)
  • How Many Codes of Conduct do we Need? The Chinese Experience (Ping Sun)
  • The Past, Present and Future of one University's Code of Research Ethics in New Zealan (John O'Neill & Sylvia Rumball)
  • The Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research — Challenges and Responses (Timothy Dyke)
• Section V: Institutional and National Approaches to Fostering Responsible Research:
  • Why, What, and How we Should be Teaching about Research Integrity (Michael Kalichman)
  • Establishing an Institutional Culture of Research Integrity: Key Challenges & Successful Solutions (Philip J Langlais)
  • A Curriculum for RCR Training in Germany (Gerlinde Sponholz)
  • Teaching and Training Research Ethics (Ragnvald Kalleberg)
  • Developing Policies for RCR Training in Brazilian Graduate Programs: Current Challenges (Sonia M R Vasconcelos)
• Section VI: Individual Approaches to Fostering Integrity in Research:
  • Online RCR Training and the Use of Case Study Videos (Daniel R Vasgird)
  • Use of Case Studies in Training Students and Practitioners in Responsible Research Practice (Bruce H J McKellar)
  • Réflexives Integrated Training Program for PhD Students and Their Supervisors: Quality, Integrity and Responsible Conduct of Research (Marie-Claude Roland)
  • How to Teach Research Integrity Without the Notion: Attempts in Japan (Tetsuji Iseda)
  • Creating the CITI-Japan Program for Web-Based Training: Where Ethics, Law and Science Experts Meet (Iekuni Ichikawa & Masaru Motojima)
  • Promoting Best Practices for Scientists and Postdoctoral Fellows (Makoto Asashima)
  • Statens Serum Institute's Course on Good Scientific Practice: Why? How? What? Does it Work? What is Needed? (Nils Axelsen)
  • Responsible Conduct of Research Workshops at the Australian National University (Simon Bain)
  • Scientific Integrity: The Perspective from Imperial College London (Mary Ritter & Stephen Webster)
  • Workshop #3 Report: International Responsible Conduct of Research Education (Nicholas H Steneck, Mike Kalichman & Nils Axelsen)
• Section VII: Integrity Issues for Authors and Editors:
  • Challenges for Editors as Guardians of the Research Record (Sabine Kleinert)
  • Promoting Integrity in Research Reporting: Developing Universal Standards and Promoting Best Practice among Journals (Elizabeth Wager)
  • The Equator Network: A Global Initiative to Improve Reporting of Health Research Studies (Iveta Simera & David Moher)
  • Challenges and Responses in Mathematical Research Publishing (Douglas N Arnold)
  • Plagiarism Understanding and Management in Russia and Central Europe (Vladimir Vlassov)
  • Background to Responsible Research Publication Position Statements (Elizabeth Wager & Sabine Kleinert)
  • Responsible Research Publication: International Standards for Authors (Elizabeth Wager & Sabine Kleinert)
  • Responsible Research Publication: International Standards for Editors (Sabine Kleinert & Elizabeth Wage)
• Section VIII: Integrity in the News, Climate Change and Dual-Use Technology:
  • Turning up the Heat on Research Integrity: Lessons from “Climategate” (Mark S Frankel)
  • Climategate: A Journalist's Perspective (Fred Pearce)
  • Research Integrity's Burning Fuse: Climate Truth before Change Explodes (Ann Henderson-Sellers)
  • Integrity in Research with Dual-Use Potential (Lida Anestidou)
  • Governance Options for Dual-Use Research (Gerald L Epstein)
  • The Role of Leadership and Culture within the Laboratory (David R Franz)
  • Dual-Use Research, Codes of Conduct, and the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (F Daniel Davis)
  • Research with Dual-Use Potential in RCR Education: Is there a Role for Codes? (Elizabeth Heitman)
• Appendix: Singapore Statement on Research Integrity

Readership: Researchers, research administrators from funding agencies and similar bodies, research organisations performing research, universities, policy makers and general public.

SECTION II

RESEARCH INTEGRITY STRUCTURES

INTRODUCTION

Promoting integrity and responding to integrity begins with structures — international, national, institutional and local. The chapters in this Section present examples of structures from across the World for handling misconduct cases and for the promotion of good research practice. It is naturally very heterogeneous, reflecting the diversity of national and local organisational structures of research, as well as local conditions, traditions and history.

Boesz opened this discussion of challenges in this area by highlighting the problems caused by policy diversity in a rapidly globalising research world. This starts from the problem of creating harmonised systems even within one country, where there may be complex divisions of responsibility at the local level. She goes on to describe the attempts that have been made to arrive at some common guidance through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Global Science Forum (OECD-GSF). Boesz highlights both the need for an agreed framework coupled with resources necessary to conduct international investigations. The OECD-GSF recommended adoption of ‘Boilerplate’ text that could be incorporated into international research agreements. Whatever form of words is used — and the ‘Boilerplate’ is a compromise — the key message is that a clause covering cooperation to promote research integrity and a commitment to jointly investigate alleged cases of misconduct should be the norm in all such international agreements at whatever level. Boesz points out that an underlying base condition, as recommended in the ESF report and further recommended in the Singapore Statement, is that each country has an obligation to develop its own structure on which international action can be based.

Alper reinforces this message by stressing the role of institutional leadership in addressing research integrity. He sets a high bar for such an achievement. In addition, he advocates that learned and professional societies have a significant role to play in such leadership. Overall, academic and research leadership is necessary to promote education in research integrity as the most positive way forward. Setting the bar high, promoting education and dealing sternly with miscreants is necessary to improve performance and develop and maintain public trust in research.

Lee Eng Hin describes the development of research in the Conference host country — Singapore. Singapore is a rapidly emerging research nation, which couples a policy of putting research at the heart of economic development with its ethos and reputation for incorruptibility. Lee describes the developments within the national research agency, A* STAR, in its aims to foster integrity within both its intra-and extra-mural research. This is a challenge faced by many such ‘hybrid’ agencies around the world.

Halliday outlines the developments taking place at a regional level within Europe and introduces the Code of Conduct developed by the European Science Foundation (ESF) and ALLEA as an example of what may be achieved when a positive spirit of cooperation exists between national agencies in several countries. In bringing agencies together from across Europe, ESF had also stimulated action by those countries currently lacking structures as well as encouraging those with working systems to review their effectiveness. Halliday, then discussed public trust in research, based on his experience in heading a major UK funding agency. He concludes with the suggestion that research has changed its character and so the methods of traditional science must change in step, especially in the new information age, with an emphasis on transparency and better record keeping.

Other contributors then describe the situations in a variety of countries and the steps being taken to build structures to promote research integrity and deal with misconduct. Heslegrave describes the complex processes and compromises necessary to establish a national system, as has been the recent experience in Canada. Rumball and O'Neill pose questions arising from New Zealand that demand the unambiguous commitment of institutional leadership. Bossi pays particular attention to scepticism and mistrust within society to academic self-policing — a theme that occured in many of the Conference contributions. He concludes that there has to be continuous action to promote research integrity, demonstrable to the public, in order to overcome this scepticism. Masui, in outlining the research integrity structures in Japan, with special emphasis on biomedical research, poses a behavioural question and one to which the community must give serious thought. He comes down on the side of both the freedom of researchers while reinforcing individual responsibility, which is, of course, reiterated in the Singapore Statement with its emphasis on individual responsibility. Finally, Ren describes the Australian experience in which action to promote research integrity is being taken at a variety of levels with institutional leadership being to the fore. He goes on to advocate the use of the Singapore Statement as the basis for incorporating research integrity into future international research collaboration.

Cooperation across borders is recommended by many speakers, but may be difficult due to language and other differences, even when there is a willingness to work together. This question is especially pertinent in Finland, a country with well-established guidelines and procedures, where the Finnish language does not have a word for ‘integrity’ and so ‘ethics’ is used not only for ethical matters but also as the translation for integrity. From another European perspective, de Hen describes how the European Network of Research Integrity Offices (ENRIO) has enabled countries and organisations to learn from each other — a regional example that could be widened to a global level, something that was considered by the OECD-GSF. Yudin describes the situation in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and draws attention to the suspicions of the researchers themselves at attempts to conduct surveys of research integrity behaviours based on their previous experiences under communism in the 20th century. This shows the barriers that frequently need to be overcome both within and outside the research community.

The overall message in these chapters is clear. We have to accommodate large variety both within nations and between them while at the same time striving for common ground, which can be provided by the Singapore Statement. It is also recognised that public trust in research has to be earned.

CHAPTER 1

DEVELOPING RESEARCH INTEGRITY STRUCTURES: NATIONALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY

Christine C Boesz

As research agendas continue to evolve, becoming more complex and involving more collaborators, the research support systems must also evolve to keep up with the increasing demands of modern research. An important, and some would argue a critical, aspect of the evolution is the development of structures that will support research¹ integrity across geopolitical boundaries and all cultures. Important compliance issues span a wide range of governmental, sponsor, and academic requirements, intended to protect the environment and individuals from possible harmful effects. At times these compliance initiatives place burdens on the research community, but have become essential safeguards to protect the public and its interest. Research misconduct is a reality although its prevalence on a global basis is unknown and is hard to estimate. There are, however, plenty of examples of poor behavior and lapses in judgment. The question is: How can integrity structures support the research yet handle difficulties as they arise? The task is difficult, and involves education, organizational responsibilities, and individual commitment. The following discussion will focus on one area of risk and interest to the research community and its sponsors: how to handle allegations of research misconduct.

Such allegations can be very damaging to the research enterprise and the individuals involved. The topic is a non-trivial issue with some very difficult challenges. Although international collaborations bring a rich and rewarding dimension to the research enterprise, there are risks associated with such arrangements.² With the growth in international collaborations, a logical outgrowth is the development of international policies and guidelines to respond to such allegations. Today the challenges are to better understand how to harmonize the various policies and procedures that have sprung up around the globe and to better share resources and expertise when investigating allegations. Yet the process of building an integrity structure begins at home. Research institutions, whether public or private, that have good integrity structures, will have good outcomes, including the handling of allegations of research misconduct.

When an allegation of misconduct occurs, the daunting challenge is to handle it in a fair and timely manner, with integrity and accuracy. When the allegation is investigated, the results and consequences of any actions should be communicated to all stakeholders, with emphasis on lessons learned. Communication is important because it helps the research community to understand not only the failure, but also the consequence of such bad or inappropriate behavior. Too often the consequences of bad or poor research practices are simply not understood. In general, communication of lessons learned and consequences supports advances in integrity and fosters good research practices.

Today's challenges in handling research misconduct may be more complex because of the involvement of multiple researchers, in as many institutions, in more than one country, with varying degrees of political and social harmony. Also, varying scientific, social and political interests contribute to the challenges and may sometimes impede the investigators' progress, or even thwart the initiation of an investigation. To reduce the negative effect of these interests, it is important to have unambiguous principles of expected behavior, clear definitions of misconduct and explicit rules and procedures on how to handle and investigate and follow-up adjudications. Furthermore, the importance of having appropriate structures in place are fundamentally important to having integrity in the investigative process itself.

Where does one look for guidance in developing a good integrity structure? The Global Science Forum (GSF) of the Office of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) crafted one response. The OECD is a 33-country treaty organization that provides a forum for member and observing nations to compare and develop a variety of best practices to assist each other in market development.³ Its GSF focuses on issues that have multiple-nation interest in fundamental science research.⁴

The GSF was initially approached in 2006 by the government of Japan with concerns about the global impact on science of serious research misconduct. The GSF agreed to accept the challenge of exploring best practices and developing some guidance in what to do with matters of misconduct in science. An International Steering Committee was established to convene a workshop in Tokyo during 2007. This resulted with a report accepted by the GSF, Best Practices for ensuring Scientific Integrity and Preventing Misconduct.⁵ The participants were representatives of 23 governments that take part in GSF issues. OECD staff and experts in research integrity supported the process. During the process of developing the concepts and recommendations discussed in the report, numerous discussions focused on the root causes of misconduct, options for dealing with allegations, formal processes for investigating serious case, and prevention activities. Consensus among participants was achieved although geopolitical, academic and cultural differences were represented. The findings and recommendations of the Report are intended to apply to all domains of basic and applied research, including physical and life sciences, social and behavioral sciences, and the humanities.⁶ The highlights of this report are summarized below.

First, after considering a broad range of inappropriate and bad behaviors, core “misconduct in research” was defined as plagiarism, falsification, and fabrication of data.⁷ Initially, a few argued that plagiarism was a victimless transgression and, therefore, the consequences were not serious to the scientific enterprise. However, the majority believed that the use of another's ideas without attribution, whether specifically printed information or stolen as a concept, was a serious misconduct and struck at the heart of the research enterprise. Within countries that have small research communities, there is a heavy reliance on reviewers from other nations. There is a concern that the international composition of review teams leads to the pilfering of ideas in proposals reviewed. Since most funders of research, particularly governments, use some system of peer review to judge which proposals get funded, unchecked plagiarism can erode the integrity of a peer review process and contribute to corruption in the funding decisions. As the funders' interests were paramount among GSF members, the majority view became the consensus position. While there are no statistics on the prevalence of such behavior, the concern alone is sufficient to worry the conscientious persons responsible for peer review processes.

Data fabrication and falsification seem like simple concepts. However, complex manners by which data is collected and manipulated led to intense discussions over how much, if any, tolerance can be permitted. The response was clear. There should be no tolerance when it comes to making up data, selectively excluding it from analyses, misinterpreting it to obtain desired result, or misrepresenting images in publications.

The OECD report details a wide range of inappropriate behavior that may be called misconduct by researchers, including but not limited poor research practices, poor personal behavior, poor publication practices, and financial wrongdoing.⁸ While these activities are unfortunate, and even deplorable, the GSF Committee decided that the research community itself would best consider the broader range of misconduct. Plagiarism in proposing, performing or reviewing research or fabrication and falsification of data and reporting it as research results amounts to scientific fraud. Thus, the notion of intent to mislead is linked to the core definitions. Such acts of misconduct are not accidental, but rather deliberate actions by the researcher to behave badly. Because such deliberate actions by the researcher can lead to harm to society and to individuals, these acts of misconduct are serious, and possibly even criminal. In reality, damage to the scientific record can be very costly to the research enterprise. Costly, not only in terms of time and resources, but also in terms of the public's tr...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Section I: Welcomes
• Section II: Research Integrity Structures
• Section III: Research Misconduct
• Section IV: Codes of Conduct
• Section V: Institutional and National Approaches to Fostering Responsible Research
• Section VI: Individual Approaches to Fostering Integrity in Research
• Section VII: Integrity Issues for Authors and Editors
• Section VIII: Integrity in the News, Climate Change and Dual-Use Technology