Responsible Science Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process: Volume I (1992) / Chapter Skim
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1 INTRODUCTION
1 INTRODUCTION
Pages 17-35
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From page 17... ...
By integrity of the research process, the panel means the adherence by scientists and their institutions to honest and verifiable methods in proposing, performing, evaluating, and reporting research activities. The research process includes the construction of hypotheses; the development of experimental and theoretical paradigms; the collection, analysis, and handling of data; the 17
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Also apparent are pressures related to the quickening pace and use of new developments in science research results in some areas can rapidly influence public policy, health care services, and the commercial value of new products.
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As a result, scientists are calling attention to factors in the research environment itself that have been identified as negatived But questions about how to safeguard the integrity of an enterprise that is central to contemporary American life are of concern to more than scientists alone. The self-regulatory system in science, which has evolved over the centuries to foster creativity and scientific achievement, may need to evolve further to meet the demands for public accountability that accompany government, foundation, and industrial support of scientific research.6 The Problem of Misconduct in Science In the 1980s, newspaper and magazine accounts brought to the attention of the scientific community, the public at large, and the federal government several instances of scientists who reported measurements they never made, altered research results, or plagiarized the work of others.7 In many cases, the responses of the institutions
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From page 20... ...
The creative processes of scientific judgment, experimentation, and error-correction that are intrinsic to the development of new scientific knowledge require a flexible and adaptable environment. In a time of expanding research opportunities and competitive funding pressures, many scientists also fear that significant time, and possibly resources, could be diverted from research endeavors and used instead to satisfy administrative controls derived from political imperatives.
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From page 21... ...
One challenge is to develop vigorous approaches to protect and enhance scientific traditions and sound research practices and to penalize those who engage in misconduct. 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
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From page 22... ...
scientific research community. First, the panel examined factors fundamental to the integrity of the research process, including scientific principles and research practices; changes within the contemporary research environment; and the roles of individuals, educational programs, and research guidelines in fostering responsible research
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The panel chose this approach to emphasize positive steps that might be taken to assure the integrity of the research process in the current environment. Although many organizations are absorbed with responding to the problem of misconduct in science, institutional experience with recently adopted regulatory requirements is very new, and there is not yet a clear consensus about procedural approaches that may be necessary to address allegations of misconduct.~i The panel did not attempt to resolve all of these matters in this report.
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For example, the value of formal and informal educational approaches in fostering responsible research practices has, to the panel's knowledge, not been systematically addressed. And although some research institutions in recent years have adopted formal guidelines designed to foster responsible practices, the experience with research guidelines is limited.~3 The panel also found barriers to obtaining data on specific incidents of misconduct.
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If, for example, survey respondents apply the term "misconduct in science" to a broad range of behaviors that extend beyond legal or institutional definitions, their responses weaken the significance of reported survey results. In order 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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From page 26... ...
Its primary purpose is to advance the quality of policy and educational discussions about distinctions between different kinds of troubling behavior within the research environment, and to allow scientists, institutional officers, and public officials to focus their attention and their efforts toward prevention on substantive issues rather than discrepancies in terminology. Thus the framework of definitions proposed in this report should be viewed as a tool for use in a sustained effort by the research community to strengthen the integrity of the research process, to promote responsible research conduct, and to clarify appropriate methods to address instances of misconduct in science.
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The panel unanimously rejects ambiguous language such as the category "other serious deviations from accepted research practices" currently included in regulatory definitions adopted by the Public Health Service and the National Science Foundation (DHHS, 1989a; NSF, l991b)
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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; · 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;~9 · 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. The panel wishes to make a clear demarcation between misconduct in science and questionable research practices the two catego
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From page 29... ...
The selective use of research data is another area where the boundary between fabrication and creative insight may not be obvious. The panel emphasizes that scientists, individually and collectively, need to take questionable research practices seriously because when tolerated, such practices can encourage an environment that fosters misconduct in science.
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From page 30... ...
But although the "bad person" approach to explaining deviant behavior in science has had strong support within the scientific community, Bechtel and Pearson and others have questioned whether this hypothesis alone adequately explains the phenomenon of misconduct in science. A broad range of factors in the research environment have been suggested as possible causes of misconduct in science.
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As a result, efforts to foster integrity in the research process and to reduce the occurrence of misconduct in science should be evaluated systematically to identify steps that prove to be effective. A range of possible steps is discussed in the following chanters.
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Misconduct Is one part of a larger public examination of scientific and educational institutions. Public confidence in the methods by which scientists maintain the integrity of the research process can be eroded when misconduct occurs in a social environment that is already disturbed by, for example, reports of misuse of the indirect costs associated with research funds, and other behaviors that violate public trust.
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3. For a review of the impact of the contemporary research environment on the ethos of science, see Hoshiko (1991)
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17. Another approach considered by the panel in defining behaviors that violate the integrity of the research process was to deal only with misconduct in science and questionable research practices and to omit "other misconduct" as a category for a framework of definitions.
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From page 35... ...
6~Uc~o~ 33 22. The authors concluded that the deviant behavior in these cases, usually faking scientific experiments and data, was displayed by single individuals who acted alone.
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Key Terms
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