By Maha David, project officer - GO
Upholding and breaching research integrity
Research integrity refers to adherence to the moral and ethical principles that serve as the foundation for conducting research activities. It relies on the use of honest, transparent and verifiable methods at every stage of the research endeavor, including study design, data collection and analysis, and the reporting and publication of research results.
The failure to respect research integrity principles leads to research misconduct, commonly defined as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, reviewing, or reporting research results (1). However, breach of research integrity encompasses other inappropriate or questionable research practices, such as undisclosed conflicts of interest, violations of research policies, problematic statistical processing, biased peer-reviewing etc.
Why it matters
Research integrity ensures reliable research results that benefit society and contribute to economic, technological and medical progress. It also allows the whole society to trust in the results of research and protects the public from the negative consequences of misleading and erroneous data (2). Breach of research integrity leads to delayed discoveries, which in medical research can directly harm patients’ prognosis and public health. From an economic perspective, research misconduct results in a waste of resources in a context where the means allocated to research are increasingly limited.
The position of funders
Research funders have an important role in the fight against research misconduct by sanctioning researchers who engage in fraudulent practices.
The French national funding agency Agence Nationale de la Recherche – ANR imposes that applicants, potential partners and funded researchers comply with the French National Charter for Research Integrity and ANR’s Ethics and Scientific Integrity Charter. Breach of the Charter leads to sanctions, such as recovering the grant or reporting the applicant/partner/beneficiary to their unit and/or competent authorities.
The European Commission recognizes the European Code of Conduct as the reference document for research integrity for all EU-funded research projects. This code stipulates that investigations into research misconduct consider the role of both individuals and institutions contributing to the breach of good research practice. It also indicates that action is taken against persons for whom an allegation of misconduct is upheld, which is proportionate to the severity of the violation.
NIH-funded institutions are required to comply with Public Health Service Policies on Research Misconduct and to have a system in place for handling allegations of research misconduct. At the NIH, research misconduct allegations are examined, and when relevant, they are forwarded to the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) who is responsible for their investigation (2). If misconduct is detected, ORI publishes an announcement explaining the fraud found and the sanctions against the researcher. This announcement is also published by the NIH. Several sanctions can be applied to the researcher, such as a ban on holding an advisory function or receiving federal funds. The repayment of funds received can also be requested. A recent example is the University of Pennsylvania, which has been asked to pay back nearly $1.7 million to the NIH. This amount represents the total funds received by a researcher during a period when he was found to have submitted "falsified" progress reports to the NIH. Of course, all these sanctions are in addition to the reputation of the researcher, which is seriously damaged.
Concluding remarks
Research integrity is of fundamental importance to produce reliable and trustable research that benefits the whole society. Its preservation is a shared responsibility between all research stakeholders, i.e. researchers, institutions, editors, reviewers, funders, and readers. If you are involved in research activities, you can find more information in the funding agencies documents cited above. You can also contact ris@pasteur.fr for any question regarding research integrity. Finally, a Charter of Scientific Integrity will soon be published at the Institut Pasteur, setting up specific correspondents who can be contacted on these issues.
References
Draft NIH Scientific Integrity Policy released on September 22, 2023
Zhaksylyk A, Zimba O, Yessirkepov M, Kocyigit BF. Research Integrity: Where we are and where we are heading. J Korean Med Sci. 2023;38:e405. https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2023.38.e405
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