Scientific Misconduct

The information needed to determine the internal and external validity of an experimental study is discussed. Internal validity is the degree to which a study establishes the cause-and-effect relationship between the treatment and the observed outcome. Establishing the internal validity of a study is based on a logical process. For a research report, the logical framework is provided by the report's structure. The methods section describes what procedures were followed to minimize threats to internal validity, the results section reports the relevant data, and the discussion section assesses the influence of bias. Eight threats to internal validity have been defined: history, maturation, testing, instrumentation, regression, selection, experimental mortality, and an interaction of threats. A cognitive map may be used to guide investigators when addressing validity in a research report. The map is based on the premise that information in the report evolves from one section to the...

Truth, trust and integrity are essential to research at higher education institutions. These institutions have accordingly adopted several policies to foster research integrity. This article explores the likelihood that relevant policies at a selected institution of higher education foster research integrity. The qualitative, single exploratory case study commences with a review of scholarly literature and results in a conceptual model used for a directed content analysis of relevant institutional policies. The findings indicate that these policies do complement each other in fostering research integrity. Further research will be necessary to establish whether policies indeed contribute to responsible researcher conduct.

The Office of Research Integrity found in 2011 that Vipul Bhrigu, a postdoctoral researcher who sabotaged a colleague’s research materials, was guilty of misconduct. However, I argue that this judgment is ill-considered and sets a problematic precedent for future cases. I first discuss the current federal definition of research misconduct and representative cases of research misconduct. Then, because this case recalls a debate from the 1990s over what the definition of “research misconduct” ought to be, I briefly recapitulate that history and reconsider the Bhrigu case in light of that history and in comparison to other cases involving tampering. Finally, I consider what the aim of a definition of research misconduct ought to be, and argue that the precedent set by the reasoning in this case is problematic.

... The focus of this article is how the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) of the US Public Health Service (PHS), as well as the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the National Science Foundation (NSF), are evaluating reports of alleged plagiarism and taking federal administrative ...

The traditional academic imperative to “publish or perish” is increasingly coupled with the newer necessity of “impact or perish”—the requirement that a publication have “impact,” as measured by a variety of metrics, including citations, views, and downloads. Gaming the Metrics examines how the increasing reliance on metrics to evaluate scholarly publications has produced radically new forms of academic fraud and misconduct. The contributors show that the metrics-based “audit culture” has changed the ecology of research, fostering the gaming and manipulation of quantitative indicators, which lead to the invention of such novel forms of misconduct as citation rings and variously rigged peer reviews. The chapters, written by both scholars and those in the trenches of academic publication, provide a map of academic fraud and misconduct today. They consider such topics as the shortcomings of metrics, the gaming of impact factors, the emergence of so-called predatory journals, the “salami slicing” of scientific findings, the rigging of global university rankings, and the creation of new watchdogs and forensic practices.

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Un article scientifique publié en avril 2019 dans la revue Population et sociétés indique qu'en France métropolitaine en 2008, les prénoms les plus fréquents chez les petits-fils d'immigrés du Maghreb seraient « Yanis » et « Nicolas ». Au total, selon l'étude, seulement 23 % des petits-enfants d'immigrés du Maghreb porteraient un prénom « arabo-musulman », un ordre de grandeur assez proche des 16 % de petits-enfants d'immigrés d'Europe du Sud qui porteraient un prénom « latin ». Considérant les prénoms des descendants d'immigrés comme « un marqueur culturel » et « une mesure de l'assimilation », les auteurs notent que « Les prénoms que reçoivent les petits-enfants [d'immigrés du Maghreb] sont, en 2008, proches de ceux que la population majoritaire donne à ses enfants », et que « La trajectoire suivie par les originaires du Maghreb mène au même point d'arrivée que celle suivie par les Européens du Sud, mais de manière différée. » Problème : ces résultats, publiés par le bulletin d'information de l'Institut national d'études démographiques (INED) et largement médiatisés, sont inexacts. Vérification faite, en métropole en 2008 les prénoms les plus fréquents chez les petits-fils d'immigrés du Maghreb ne sont pas « Yanis » et « Nicolas », mais « Karim » et « Nassim ». Et d'après la nomenclature des prénoms de l'INED, ce ne sont pas 23 % mais 49 % des petits-enfants d'immigrés du Maghreb qui portent un prénom « arabo-musulman », contre 8 % des petits-enfants d'immigrés d'Europe du Sud qui portent un prénom « latin ». L'article étant inexact, il doit - conformément aux usages de la communauté scientifique - être rétracté en bonne et due forme. Ces erreurs sont troublantes car pendant 20 mois, d'avril 2019 à décembre 2020, les auteurs et l'INED ont refusé de communiquer leur méthodologie et ils ont empêché la vérification de leurs résultats.

As researchers, we are often required to disclose any conflicts of interest we might have, for instance, when submitting a paper to a journal, or when acting as reviewers of a research project at the request of a funding agency. Over the past few decades, the duty to declare conflicts of interest has become a normal component of academic life. However, the concept is sometimes misunderstood. What is a conflict of interest and why it matters?

In the past two decades, individual explanations of scientific misconduct ('bad apples') have increasingly given way to systemic explanations ('bad systems'). Where did this interest in systemic factors (publication pressure, competition for research funding) come from? Given that research ethicists often present their interventions as responses to scientific misconduct, this article tests the hypothesis that these systemic explanations were triggered by high-visibility cases of scientific norm violation. It does so by examining why Dutch scientists in 2011 explained Diederik Stapel's grand-scale data fabrication largely in systemic terms, whereas only fifteen years earlier, in the René Diekstra affair (1996), such explanations had been close to absent. Drawing on a wealth of historical sources, the article suggests that cases like Stapel's as such do not explain why early 21st-century commentators exchanged individual explanations for systemic ones. Only against the background of an existing discourse of criticism of the science system, developed in the 1990s and 2000s in response to rapidly increasing competition for research funding, could the Stapel affair achieve notoriety as an example of how systemic factors provoke bad conduct.

This paper discusses the use of the Milgram obedience experiments and the Tuskegee syphilis study in the bioethical literature. The two studies are presented and a variety of uses of them identified and discussed. It is argued that the use of these studies as paradigms of problematic research relies on a reduction of their complexity. What is discussed is thus often constructions of these studies that are closer to hypothetical examples than to the real studies

The incidence of research fraud has reached troubling levels. Too often peer review has failed to prevent it. The harm caused by such conduct extends to patients, co-authors, supervisors, employing institutions, funders, journals, publishers, and importantly the area and direction of the research itself and its potential influence are tarnished. A number of commentators have raised the option of criminal charges being preferred against those responsible for such fraud. This has occurred in the United States, in particular, but also in the United Kingdom, Korea and Australia in high-profile cases. There is much to be said for this form of prosecutorial response to the phenomenon of research fraud given its multi-level ramifications, the considered nature of the conduct, and the fact that it is engaged in by persons well positioned to appreciate the harm that their deceit may cause. The involvement of the criminal law enhances the potential for deterrence from yielding to the temptati...

Honesty in scientific publication is critical for scientific advancement, but dishonesty is commonly and increasingly observed in the forms of misconduct and other questionable practices. Focusing on dishonest conformity in peer review, in which authors unwillingly obey referees’ instructions in order to have their papers accepted even if the instructions contradict the author’s scientific belief, the current study aims to investigate the determinants of dishonesty. Drawing on survey data of Japanese life scientists, this study shows that the conflict between authors and referees in peer review is quite common, under which a majority of scientists follow referees’ instructions rather than to refute them. The results suggest that conformity occurs more frequently 1) in biology than in medicine and agriculture, 2) when authors are under stronger scientific competition, 3) if authors are associate professors rather than full professors, 4) if authors have no foreign research experience, and 5) in low-impact journals rather than in medium-impact journals.

Scientific misconduct (SMC) is an increasing concern in nursing science. This article discusses the prevalence of SMC, risk factors and correlates of scientific misconduct in nursing science, and highlights interventional approaches to foster good scientific conduct. Using the "Fostering Research Integrity in Europe" report of the European Science Foundation as a framework, we reviewed the literature in research integrity promotion. Although little empirical data exist regarding prevalence of scientific misconduct in the field of nursing science, available evidence suggests a similar prevalence as elsewhere. In studies of prospective graduate nurses, 4% to 17% admit data falsification or fabrication, while 8.8% to 26.4% report plagiarizing material. Risk factors for SMC exist at the macro, meso, and micro levels of the research system. Intervention research on preventing scientific misconduct in nursing is limited, yet findings from the wider field of medicine and allied h...

This deliverable DIII.1.2 is part of work package 3 in which indicators are gathered on the extent of misconduct and how institutions respond to breaches of scientific integrity. As a part of the empirical phase in PRINTEGER it contributes to our analysis of what policies and organizational responses are most likely to engender a culture of integrity in research organisations. The exploration of the incidence of misconduct is combined with the institutional response, since it is partly through this response that misconduct is made explicit or even defined.
This deliverable reflects on one of the key questions in the scientific integrity debate; what is the incidence or extent of misconduct in science? This is one of the questions raised many years ago, but a clear-cut answer is not available and may be even impossible to formulate. What we know about misconduct in science has for the largest part been derived from self-report studies and rough estimations in statistics of universities, control agencies or funding bodies. Therefore, it remains difficult to conclude whether or not these estimations are correct, significant and reliable.
In this deliverable, we report about our attempt to gather empirical data on breaches of integrity that have ended up in official administrative or institutional (academic) files e.g. cases which are visible in administrative procedures of research and research funding institutions or bodies for investigating misconduct cases. With this report, we do not pretend to have found a clear answer to the incidence question. We do however aim to make visible the procedural chain that is followed when a case of misconduct comes to the surface. Besides a ‘mapping’ exercise, we aim at discussing theoretical and methodological issues when it comes to gathering data relying upon official procedures. Registration practices differ greatly from one research institution to another, from one country to another. This makes comparative research in general (and between the countries involved in this deliverable) very difficult if not impossible.
However, we argue that issues concerning denunciation, discovery and registration practices, whistle blowing, transparency, gaining access, confidentiality, reputational bias etc. are precisely worth a close scrutiny and must be discussed when doing research on the prevalence of misconduct in science in a European context. Indeed, in our view these aspects of the incidence question are not merely technical (or methodological) but they reveal a lot about the nature of scientific misconduct and about how scientific integrity and misconduct are intimately intertwined with daily scientific and academic practices and organization. They are mutually constitutive. Hence, there may be significant differences between disciplinary scientific practices as well as between national science systems (countries). It reveals a lot about how alleged breaches of integrity and misconduct are experienced, detected, reported, processed, registered and reacted upon.
Starting from a state of the art of what has been measured in previous research, we focused on the biases that have to be taken into account when measuring the extent and incidence of misconduct. Besides a discussion on issues related to the use of official statistics, self-report studies and reputational biases we reflect on the conceptual issues embedded in the process of registration and their consequences for registering practices in administrative procedures. In a next step, we discuss the separate methodologies of the partners involved in this deliverable and the results that were obtained. This report wraps up with a concluding part, reflecting on future directions for research on this topic and the data sources that are useful to measure misconduct in science.

Experimenter misconduct has occurred many times in parapsychology and is a constant threat. Undetected cases are likely. Routine practices for confirmatory experiments should include: (a) prospective public registration of experiments, (b) experimental procedures that make intentional or unintentional data alterations by one person difficult, and (c) sharing data for analyses by others. Research organizations and funding sources should require these practices. A registry for parapsychological experiments is available at http://www.koestler-parapsychology.psy.ed.ac.uk/TrialRegistry.html.

Practices related to research misconduct seem to have been multiplied in recent years. Many cases of scientific fraud have been exposed publicly, and journals and academic institutions have deployed different measures worldwide in this regard. However, the influence of specific social and cultural environments on scientific fraud may vary from society to society. This article analyzes how scientists in Japan deal with accusations of scientific fraud. For such a purpose, a series of scientific fraud cases that took place in Japan has been reconstructed through diverse sources. Thus, by analyzing those cases, the social basis of scientific fraud and the most relevant aspects of Japanese cultural values and traditions, as well as the concept of honour which is deeply involved in the way Japanese scientists react when they are accused of and publicly exposed in scientific fraud situations is examined.

Retraction of flawed articles is an important mechanism for correction of the scientific literature. We recently reported that the majority of retractions are associated with scientific misconduct. In the current study, we focused on the subset of retractions for which no misconduct was identified, in order to identify the major causes of error. Analysis of the retraction notices for 423 articles indexed in PubMed revealed that the most common causes of error-related retraction are laboratory errors, analytical errors, and irreproducible results. The most common laboratory errors are contamination and problems relating to molecular biology procedures (e.g., sequencing, cloning). Retractions due to contamination were more common in the past, whereas analytical errors are now increasing in frequency. A number of publications that have not been retracted despite being shown to contain significant errors suggest that barriers to retraction may impede correction of the literature. In par...

This deliverable is part of Work Package II of the Promoting Integrity as an Integral Dimension of Excellence in Research (PRINTEGER) research project. Titled What is integrity? Multidisciplinary Reconnaissance, Work Package II is devoted to the analytic reconnaissance of research integrity and scientific misconduct. This report contributes to this reconnaissance by conceptualizing deviance in science from a criminological perspective. In this chapter we aim at discussing deviance in science or scientific misconduct from a criminological perspective. A criminological approach focusses on the complexity of deviant behavior, as well as on the problematization of this behavior as deviance, and how this is part of the social reaction to it. In order to understand deviance in science we need to deconstruct the several dimensions that shape this paradoxical object (Pires, 1993).
As criminologists we cannot look at misconduct in science as if it was a naturally given or ontological entity. On the contrary, we need to take into consideration the social processes that problematize scientific practices (behaviors) as not acceptable or deviant: it is precisely through these social processes not only that the figure of “scientific deviance or misconduct” is constructed, but also and at the same time, that practices of social reaction and control, and possibilities for (early-) intervention, emerge. Therefore, we will address both the phenomenon of so-called misconduct as well as the social reaction it calls into being. Scientific misconduct indeed refers to its classical forms, well known as FFP, meaning Fabrication, Falsification and Plagiarism (FFP). But as we will see in this contribution, scientific misconduct refers to a much broader category of researchers’ behavior when doing science.

The number of retracted scientific articles has been increasing. Most retractions are associated with research misconduct, entailing financial costs to funding sources and damage to the careers of those committing misconduct. We sought to calculate the magnitude of these effects. Data relating to retracted manuscripts and authors found by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to have committed misconduct were reviewed from public databases. Attributable costs of retracted manuscripts, and publication output and funding of researchers found to have committed misconduct were determined. We found that papers retracted due to misconduct accounted for approximately $58 million in direct funding by the NIH between 1992 and 2012, less than 1% of the NIH budget over this period. Each of these articles accounted for a mean of $392,582 in direct costs (SD $423,256). Researchers experienced a median 91.8% decrease in publication output and large declines in funding after censure by the ORI.