Responsible Science Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process: Volume I (1992) / Chapter Skim
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Pages 1-16
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The diversity, flexibility, and creativity of the research community-strengths that have contributed to decades of scientific achievement and progress in the United States also derive from the decentralized character of the research enterprise. For centuries scientists have relied on each other, on the selfcorrecting mechanisms intrinsic to the nature of science, and on the traditions of their community to safeguard the integrity of the research process.
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The inability or refusal of research institutions to address misconduct-in-science cases can undermine both the integrity of the research process and self-governance by the research community. Acting to Ensure Integrity in Research To respond to the need for more visible, explicit mechanisms to ensure integrity in the research process, and to handle allegations of
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A second challenge is to foster responsible research conduct in a period of increasing diversification of funding sources, growing demands on limited research resources, and greater incentives for financial gain in the research environment. A third challenge is to ensure fairness and balance in efforts to establish individual and institutional accountability in scientific research activities, so that frivolous or malicious charges as well as counterproductive regulations are avoided.
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Defining Terms-Articulating a Framework for Fostering Responsible Research Conduct The panel defined the term "integrity of the research process" as the adherence by scientists and their institutions to honest and verifiable methods in proposing, performing, evaluating, and reporting research activities. To provide policy guidance for scientists, research institutions, and government research agencies concerned about ensuring the integrity of the research process as well as addressing misconduct in science, the panel developed a framework that delineates three categories of behaviors in the research environment that require attention.
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Some panel members believe that the definition should also encompass other actions that directly damage the integrity of the research process and that are undertaken with the intent to deceive. Questionable Research Practices Questionable research practices are actions that violate traditional values of the research enterprise and that may be detrimental to the research process.
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However, they deserve attention because they can erode confidence in the integrity of the research process, violate traditions associated with science, affect scientific conclusions, waste time and resources, and weaken the education of new scientists. Questionable research practices include activities such as the following: · Failing to retain significant research data for a reasonable period; · Maintaining inadequate research records, especially for results that are published or are relied on by others; · Conferring or requesting authorship on the basis of a specialized service or contribution that is not significantly related to the research reported in the paper;3 · Refusing to give peers reasonable access to unique research materials or data that support published papers; · Using inappropriate statistical or other methods of measurement to enhance the significance of research findings;4 · Inadequately supervising research subordinates or exploiting them; and · Misrepresenting speculations as fact or releasing preliminary research results, especially in the public media, without providing sufficient data to allow peers to judge the validity of the results or to reproduce the experiments.
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Accordingly, the panel emphasizes the following conclusions: · The panel believes that the existing self-regulatory system in science is sound. But modifications are necessary to foster integrity in a changing research environment, to handle cases of misconduct in science, and to discourage questionable research practices.
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Still, basic research continues to flourish, and faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students continue to contribute extraordinary research capability to science. In reviewing changes within the scientific research enterprise, the panel reached the following conclusions: · Scientific research is part of a larger and more complicated enterprise today, creating a greater need for individual and institutional attention to matters that affect the integrity of the research process.
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· The research environment is stressful and yet conducive to the remarkable productivity of researchers. The rewards for successful research are greater now than in the past, but today's rapid pace of development may undermine critical internal checks and balances and may increase opportunities for misrepresentation or distortion of research results.
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Many universities have now established policies and procedures for handling allegations of misconduct in science, and some research institutions have acquired valuable experience in implementing these procedures to deal with cases of misconduct. However, the legal and procedural issues associated with misconduct-in-science investigations are extraordinarily complex, and there is little case law in the public record to guide and inform analysis of these issues.
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Balance is required. Inflexible rules or requirements can increase the time and effort necessary to conduct research, can discourage creative individuals from pursuing research careers, can decrease innovation, and can in some instances make the research process impossible.
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Research institutions have not developed mechanisms for broad exchange of information and experience in resolving difficult cases and consequently lack opportunities for learning from each other. Steps to Encourage Responsible Research Practices In considering different approaches to dealing with questionable research practices, the panel concluded that questionable practices are best discouraged through peer review and the system of appointments, evaluations, and other rewards in the research environment as well as educational programs that emphasize responsible behavior in the research environment.
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RECOMMENDATIONS Ensuring the integrity of the research process requires that scientists and research institutions give systematic attention to the fundamental values, principles, and traditions that foster responsible research conduct. In considering factors that may affect integrity and misconduct in science, the panel formulated twelve recommendations to strengthen the research enterprise and to clarify the nature of the responsibilities of scientists, research institutions, and government agencies in this area.
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Recommendation Seven Scientists and their institutions should act to discourage questionable research practices through a broad range of formal and informal methods in the research environment. They should also accept responsibility for determining which questionable research practices are serious enough to warrant institutional penalties.
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Taking Additional Steps Recommendation Ten An independent Scientific Integrity Advisory Board should be created by the scientific community and research institutions to exercise leadership in addressing ethical issues in research conduct; in framing model policies and procedures to address misconduct in science and other misconduct; to collect and analyze data on episodes of misconduct in the research environment; to provide periodic assessments of the adequacy of public and private systems that have been developed to handle misconduct in science cases; and to facilitate the exchange of information about and experience with policies and procedures governing the handling of allegations of misconduct in science. Recommendation Eleven The important role that individual scientists can play in disclosing incidents of misconduct in science should be acknowledged.
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Recommendation Twelve Scientific societies and scientific journals should continue to provide and expand resources and forums to foster responsible research practices and to address misconduct in science and questionable research practices.
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