Paul M Taylor1 and Daniel P Barr2

1Director, Research Integrity, Governance and Systems
Research and Innovation, RMIT University (paul.taylor@rmit.edu.au)

2Acting Director, Office for Research Ethics and Integrity
Research, Innovation and Commercialisation, The University of Melbourne (dpbarr@unimelb.edu.au)

We need more research into research integrity, research misconduct and peer review. This is not a controversial statement, and few would argue against it. So, this is a short blog post then…

It’s worth thinking about why we think that more research into these areas is important and needed. The research that has been reported in the literature is valuable to us and has produced some fascinating insights. We see differences in attitudes in different countries and career stages, and evidence about the impacts of research misconduct. Like all good research, the material already in the literature prompts us to ask more questions than it answers.

But, do we think that the same surveys about the incidence of research misconduct or attitudes to research integrity would reveal the same results for humanities and social science researchers as those in STEM disciplines? Are biomedical researchers in Australia or the UK as likely or more likely to commit research misconduct? Do RCR training packages help prevent misconduct? Is this even what we want RCR training to do? How do we best design and implement research integrity policies? Are principles really better than rules in this context? There’s a handful of grant applications right there!

Perhaps a research integrity ecosystem view would help. What are the challenges that some of the key stakeholders in research integrity are facing and how could research help?

We can start close to home by thinking about the role of institutions in research integrity. The most obvious role of institutions in this area is in responding to allegations of research misconduct. This role is entirely reasonable because of the nature of the relationship between researchers and their workplaces – employment contracts can compel people to provide evidence, and institutions may have better access to data and records that can make the difference in allegations being properly resolved. Certainly compared to other players, institutions are in the best position to consider concerns about the integrity of research. We know that there is not uniformity though in the way institutions respond. Our friends at COPE have talked about the difficulty that publishers face in sometimes even identifying a place to direct concerns. What’s the opportunity for research here? Analysis of institutions to identify traits that are found in ‘good responders’ would help those institutions trying to improve their operations in this area. How critical is the role of senior leadership? What are the impacts, at an institutional level, of a high profile or public misconduct case? How does this impact differ for highly-ranked, ‘too big to fall’ institutions compared with younger organisations? What are the factors that people see that makes them think an institution produces responsible and trustworthy research (if the institution plays that much of a role at all)?

This leads to a second and equally important role for institutions in promoting the importance of responsible and ethical research. It extends way beyond compliance (although this is obviously important). The products of research, as many and varied as they are, must be trustworthy because of the positive impacts that we all hope research will have. So, if an institution decided it wanted to revamp its research governance framework or Code of Conduct for Research, what should it focus on? What evidence do we have, in the research context, to support the idea of Codes of Conduct? Are high-level, principles-based documents that cover most research disciplines useful or are more discipline-focussed rules-based governance structures more effective? How do institutions best engender a strong culture of research integrity?

The role of training here is intuitive and probably right, but can we show that this makes a difference and results in more trustworthy, higher quality research, or does it just make us feel better? Publishers and funders too could benefit from the added insights that research would reveal. Perhaps for both of these players, understanding better the pitfalls of peer review, or development of rigorous alternative models? Research into peer review is already happening, but there could and should be more. What is the best way to distribute mostly decreasing pools of funds to highly competitive funding applicants? How consistent is the decision-making of grant review panels or journal editors? How influential are locations or institutions and ‘big names’ on manuscript or grant review processes and should all reviews be double-blind? Decisions based on peer review are intrinsic and integral to the research process. We should thoroughly understand how these processes are working and what we should do to try and make them work better.

The final group to talk about here are the researchers themselves, perhaps the most important part of the research integrity ecosystem. Given an opportunity, most researchers enjoy talking about the way research works and their own research practice. Listening to conversations between microbiologists and historians about publication rates and funding challenges, data generation and curation, and team research or sole-trader models is intriguing and very interesting. Research about attitudes towards research integrity and how it fits (or doesn’t fit) the way researchers do their research would be valuable. Fundamentally, researchers critically assess new or existing information to find new ideas or solutions. It should come as no surprise when the same critical assessment is applied to proposals for them to reconsider the way they do their research. ‘Research integrity research’ would help to support changes in behaviour that increase the trustworthiness and quality of research. This is really the goal of research integrity.

There’s no shortage of questions to answer. There’s growing awareness of research integrity as a discipline in it’s own right (perhaps it the ultimate interdisciplinary research area). There’s new places for this research to be found (like Research Integrity and Peer Review). The benefits are compelling and clear. What are we waiting for? *Paul is a member of the Editorial Board of Research Integrity and Peer Review. Aside from that, neither Paul nor Dan have any conflicts of interest to disclose, but they hope to in the near future.

This blog may be cited as:
Taylor P and Barr DP. (2016, 10 May) We would all benefit from more research integrity research. Research Ethics Monthly. Retrieved from https://ahrecs.com/research-integrity/benefit-research-integrity-research