Fostering Integrity in Research (2017) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 Important Trends and Challenges in the Research Environment
3 Important Trends and Challenges in the Research Environment
Pages 39-54
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 39... ...
They also have important implications for the ability of researchers, research institutions, journals, and sponsors to foster integrity and prevent research misconduct and detrimental research practices. The 1992 report Responsible Science: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process devoted a chapter to describing the contemporary research environment and outlining the most important changes that had occurred over the previous decades (NAS-NAE-IOM, 1992)
|
From page 40... ...
HOW RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT ISSUES IDENTIFIED IN RESPONSIBLE SCIENCE HAVE EVOLVED SINCE THE EARLY 1990s Size and Scope of the Research Enterprise The 1992 report's overview described growth in the size and scope of the research enterprise. The report observed that research in the pre–World War II United States -- academic research in particular -- was a mostly small-scale avocation of individual scientists, supported by limited funding from industry, government, and foundations.
|
From page 41... ...
In an analysis of approximately 20 million research articles published since 1955 and 2 million patents registered since 1975, the number of authors on scientific papers grew from an average of 1.9 in 1955 to 3.5 in 2000 (Wuchty et al., 2007)
|
From page 42... ...
In addition, though solo authors in 1955 were more likely to produce papers that were highly cited, suggesting that these papers reported on the most influential concepts, results, or technologies, teams are more likely to produce highly cited papers today. As the authors wrote, "solo authors did produce the papers of singular distinction in science and engineering and social science in the 1950s, but the mantle of extraordinarily cited work has passed to teams by 2000." As more researchers work collaboratively and as the size of teams grows, the relationships among team members can become more complex.
|
From page 43... ...
Regulation and Accountability The 1992 report also noted that research activities were "increasingly subject to government regulations and guidelines that impose financial and administrative requirements" in areas such as laboratory safety, human subjects protection, drug-free workplace assurance, laboratory animal care, and the research use of recombinant DNA and toxic and radioactive materials. Along with the relatively new requirements and regulations related to research misconduct, the development of which is covered in Chapter 4 of this report, ensuring compliance with these expanding regulatory requirements had resulted in an expansion of administrative and oversight functions and staff at universities and required increasing time and attention from investigators.
|
From page 44... ...
These challenges include the potential of economic incentives to introduce scientific bias, the perception of conflict of interest due to economic incentives, and the potential effect of intellectual property protection on the timely dissemination of knowledge. Industry funds and conducts a substantial amount of research in the United States.
|
From page 45... ...
Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) policy, research funded by the Public Health Service requires institutions to maintain and enforce a FCOI policy; manage, reduce, or eliminate identified conflicts; report identified conflicts, the value of the conflicts, and a management plan to the Public Health Service Awarding Component; and publish significant financial interests of any personnel involved in the research on a publicly accessible website (HHS, 2011b)
|
From page 46... ...
Additional individual conflicts of interest, or secondary interests, can also affect a research study, including political biases, white hat bias, commitment conflicts, career considerations, and favors to others (IOM, 2009; Lesser et al., 2007)
|
From page 47... ...
In many fields, the development of standards governing the application of technology in the derivation of research results remains incomplete even as continuing technological advances raise new issues. In a recent paper, two prominent biologists wrote, "Although scientists have always comforted themselves with the thought that science is self-correcting, the immediacy and rapidity with which knowledge disseminates today means that incorrect information can have a profound impact before any corrective process can take place" (Casadevall and Fang, 2012)
|
From page 48... ...
The Globalization of Research Because knowledge passes freely across national borders, scientific research has always been an international endeavor. But this internationalization has intensified over the past two decades.
|
From page 49... ...
. In some countries with rapidly developing research systems, research misconduct and detrimental research practices appear to be more common than in countries with more established research systems (Altman and Broad, 2005)
|
From page 50... ...
Science is a critical factor in public discussions of and policy decisions concerning stem cells, food safety, climate change, nuclear proliferation, education, energy production, environmental influences on health, national competitiveness, and many other issues. Although all these topics cannot be covered here, this section will describe several of the key issues affecting science, policy, and the public and how they affect (and are affected by)
|
From page 51... ...
Effectively limiting greenhouse gas emissions presents economic and technological challenges and affects countries and industries differently, making policy changes by individual countries difficult. The development of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its evolution over time illustrate the barriers to collective action on a global level.3 In this environment of significant uncertainty on key scientific questions, difficult policy choices, the possibility of large impacts on powerful economic interests, and highly mobilized advocacy operations on all sides of the climate change issue, the climate science community has faced challenges in maintaining its credibility and public trust as it contributes its expertise.
|
From page 52... ...
. A federal appeals court upheld a South Dakota statute requiring doctors to tell women seeking abortions that they face an increased risk of suicide; despite extremely weak research evidence to support the statute, the court decided not to strike it down as an undue burden on abortion rights or on First Amendment grounds (Planned Parenthood Minnesota, N.D., S.D.
|
From page 53... ...
. Research findings are increasingly relevant to a broader range of policyrelevant questions, raising the magnitude of possible negative consequences of research misconduct and detrimental research practices.
|
From page 54... ...
. How can the primary author or authors be responsible for the work of a hundred individual researchers who are geographically dispersed and come from a wide range of disciplines?
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.