Accountability in Research-Policies and Quality Assurance最新文献

Research integrity (RI) is crucial for trustworthy research. Rules are important in setting RI standards and improving research practice, but they can lead to increased bureaucracy; without commensurate commitment amongst researchers toward RI, they are unlikely to improve research practices. In this paper, we explore how to combine rules and commitment in fostering RI. Research institutions can govern RI using markets (using incentives), bureaucracies (using rules), and network processes (through commitment and agreements). Based on Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action, we argue that network processes, as part of the lifeworld, can legitimize systems - that is, market or bureaucratic governance modes. This can regulate and support RI practices in an efficient way. Systems can also become dominant and repress consensus processes. Fostering RI requires a balance between network, market and bureaucratic governance modes. We analyze the institutional response to a serious RI case to illustrate how network processes can be combined with bureaucratic rules. Specifically, we analyze how the Science Committee established at Tilburg University in 2012 has navigated different governance modes, resulting in a normatively grounded and efficient approach to fostering RI. Based on this case, we formulate recommendations to research institutions on how to combine rules and commitment.

Organizational climate and culture are important for research organizations because they foster research integrity and responsible conduct of research, reduce questionable research practices, and improve job satisfaction. The aim of our study was to explore how employees and students perceive organizational climate and its consequences in the university setting. We conducted semi-structured interviews with senior students and employees (teaching and non-teaching staff) from two different university schools: School of Medicine and Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Participants were asked questions regarding perceived climate, working environment, and the role of the institution. The data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis approach. Three themes were identified. The first theme addressed the difference in the perception and understanding of organizational climate. The second theme dealt with institutional issues emanating from organizational climate. The third theme described the behavior of stakeholders in the formation of organizational climate. Organizational climate is important concept in academic organizations as it influences both employees, particularly early career researchers, and students. Institutional leadership can strongly influence organizational climate, which can in turn affect job and job satisfaction. Due to the importance of personal morality on everyday decision-making, virtue-based research integrity training could be useful in improving academic institutions' organizational climate.

With the increasing focus on issues of race/ethnicity and sex/gender¹ across the spectrum of human activity, it is past time to consider how instruction in research integrity should incorporate these topics. Until very recently, issues of race/ethnicity and sex/gender have not typically appeared on any conventional lists of research integrity or responsible conduct of research (RCR) topics in the United States or, likely, other countries as well.² However, I argue that not only can we incorporate these issues, we should do so to help accomplish some of the central goals of instruction in research integrity. I also offer some initial suggestions about where and how to incorporate them within familiar topics of instruction.

This letter to the editor suggests adding a technical point to the new editorial policy expounded by Hosseini et al. on the mandatory disclosure of any use of natural language processing (NLP) systems, or generative AI, in writing scholarly publications. Such AI systems should naturally also be forbidden from being named as authors, because they would not have fulfilled prevailing authorship guidelines (such as the widely adopted ICMJE authorship criteria).

A consistent mitigation strategy used in sponsored research to manage a financial conflict of interest (FCOI) is disclosure in publications. While federal funding regulations require mitigation strategies to be monitored through the end of the project's term, manuscripts are often published after the project term has ended. We examined whether it would be valuable to extend monitoring of publications for compliance with requirements for disclosure beyond the end date of a project's term and, if so, for how long after the term has ended. Using publicly available databases, we identified FCOI reports from public universities and analyzed disclosure completion in the years before and after the end of the project's term. We found that 80.2% of FCOI reports in our sample had a publication in which a conflicted Investigator served as an author, yet less than half (43.6%) of these publications contained disclosure statements acknowledging the known FCOI. We also found that publication most commonly occurred one year after the end of the project's term. These findings indicate that an effective way to support accountability and accuracy of the scientific record would be to extend monitoring of disclosure in publications through one year following the end of the project's term.

Integrity in research is essential so that research can do what it is supposed to do: help us discover - or get closer to - the truth about the world and how it works. Research integrity means conducting oneself in ways that are worthy of the trust that the public invests in science. Efforts over the past five decades to ensure that researchers conduct themselves with integrity have focused on regulating researcher behavior. The suite of regulatory requirements - over 100 of them - is typically managed by an office of research compliance at universities and research institutions. The regulations, and the accompanying rules and policies, have created a regulatory-industrial complex that, while necessary, should give us pause. With the proliferation of regulations, professional organizations and certifications blossom, providing much-needed training and vouching for expertise in particular regulations. This credibility is crucial, but it also gives a false impression that we can regulate our way to ethical science. Creating a regulatory-industrial complex will not achieve our goal of an ethical research enterprise. We need to build ethical institutional cultures, engage the commitment of the entire research enterprise, and do the hard work of holding accountable the entire research ecosystem.

The Dirk Smeesters case is one of the most well-documented and widely publicized cases of research misconduct to date. We investigate, using a case study approach, which of Smeesters' articles were found to be unreliable and recommended for retraction, which were retracted, and which were not. We also investigate by whom, when, and how these fraudulent articles were retracted. We found that only six retraction notices exist for the seven Smeesters' fraudulent articles that were recommended for retraction. For four of the six retraction notices, there were no explicit markers that clearly indicated who wrote them (e.g., the editor and/or the publisher). Smeesters' flawed articles were retracted in 97.6 days on average by the retracting journals. Retraction practices in these elite marketing and social psychology journals ranged from a seeming failure to retract (i.e., no record of a retraction notice) to a fair (i.e., informative and transparent) retraction. We also emphasize the ramifications of failing to retract an article whose findings are based on fabricated data. We conclude by listing the lessons learned from the Smeesters case.