Accountability in Research

Climate change stood out as an important ethical issue that is contemplated, at least among early-stage researchers, in Buedo and colleagues' collected views on ethical issues in preclinical research. It is about time that all scientists and researchers, young or old, to stand to be accountable for our contributions toward environmental crises in our work, and conversely to think about how these crises could be mitigated by our research.

Research integrity is the cornerstone for a reliable and trustworthy science. Research misconduct is classically defined as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism. To be considered as such, the action must have been committed with the intent to mislead or deceive. There are many other research misbehaviors such as duplication, fake-peer review or lack of disclosure of conflicts of interest, that are often included in the definition of research misconduct in codes, policies, and professional documents. The definition of research misconduct varies among countries and institutions, the seriousness and intentionality of the action...

In recent years there have been calls to improve ethics in preclinical research. Promoting ethics in preclinical research should consider the perspectives of scientists. Our study aims to explore researchers' perspectives on ethics in the preclinical phase. Using interviews and focus groups, we collected views on ethical issues in preclinical research from experienced ( n  = 11) and early-stage researchers (ESRs) ( n  = 14) working in a gene therapy and regenerative medicine consortium...

Despite the increasing prominence of research collaboration, a growing number of studies have confirmed that increasing team size can have limited performance benefits. However, the mechanism of this phenomenon has yet to be established. This study, therefore, quantified responsibility diffusion based on author contribution information and explored its mediating role in the relationship between collaboration size and citation impact (citation count in a four-year window). The results show the following: (1) An inverted U-shaped relationship exists between team size and citation count...

With the continued spread of the rise of online teaching, and the massive use of 3C products (computer, communication, and consumer electronics), the cases of academic plagiarism or using others' works as own works caused by inappropriate use of the Internet are occurring all the time. However, very little research has been conducted on the cyber ethical climate in relation to cyber academic dishonesty. This study investigates the structural relationship between cyber ethical climate, cyber self-efficacy, cyber ethical attitude and cyber academic dishonesty, among university and graduate students, and develops a multiple mediation model...

When a research group has multiple retracted publications and/or research misconduct by a member is evident, there is a risk that its other publications are unreliable, so a comprehensive assessment of the group's publications is advisable. We analyzed the comprehensiveness of assessment of the integrity of 300 publications by a research group with numerous retractions and known research misconduct, for 292 of which we raised concerns to publishers and academic institutions between 3/2013 and 2/2020. By 4/2023, 91 (30%) publications had not been assessed by either publisher or academic institution...

The "publish or perish" approach has become an integral part of an academic's life when seeking positions, striving for promotions, or competing for funding. This approach often hinges on journal-based metrics which push researchers to seek publication in journals indexed in the Web of Science. Due to the pressure to publish a certain number of publications in journals indexed in the Web of Science, researchers might attempt to find a journal with a lower impact factor, i.e., less popular and visible journals in the scientific community...

This case study analyzes the expertise, potential conflicts of interest, and objectivity of editors, authors, and peer reviewers involved in a 2022 special journal issue on fertility, pregnancy, and mental health. Data were collected on qualifications, organizational affiliations, and relationships among six papers' authors, three guest editors, and twelve peer reviewers. Two articles were found to have undisclosed conflicts of interest between authors, an editor, and multiple peer reviewers affiliated with anti-abortion advocacy and lobbying groups, indicating compromised objectivity...

We extracted, coded, and analyzed data from 343 Office of Research Integrity (ORI) case summaries published in the Federal Register and other venues from May 1993 to July 2023 to test hypotheses concerning the relationship between the severity of ORI administrative actions and various demographic and institutional factors. We found that factors indicative of the severity of the respondent's misconduct or a pattern of misbehavior were associated with the severity of ORI administrative actions. Being required by ORI to retract or correct publications and aggravating factors, such as interfering with an investigation, were both positively associated with receiving a funding debarment and with receiving an administrative action longer than three years...

This study sought to identify the perceptions, attitudes and experiences of Spanish researchers regarding different aspects relating to scientific misconduct, both overall and by gender, years of research experience, and type of research institution. This is a cross-sectional study based on an anonymous online survey, targeting researchers in the field of biomedicine. The survey comprised a first block (13 questions) covering sociodemographic data, and a second block (14 questions) covering researchers' perceptions, attitudes and experiences...

Presented here is a systematic literature review of how RI teaching is discussed in national and international research integrity (RI) codes. First, we set out to identify the codes that exist, and performed some generic analysis on them. Following a comprehensive search strategy, which included all 193 United Nations member states, we identified 52 national and 14 international RI codes. RI teaching is addressed in 46 national and 10 international codes. We then examined how the codes address RI teaching under the following headings: the aims, the target audience, the ethics approach proposed, the assessment and/or evaluation strategy, and any challenges identified in relation to RI teaching...

Effective mentoring is crucial for early-career researchers, and formal mentor training programs have demonstrated benefits for participating faculty. To determine how mentor training generalizes to different contexts and populations, we delivered mentor training and evaluated its impact on faculty's self-perceived mentoring skills. We also assessed whether mentor experience with diverse mentee populations or mentor gender influences mentors' self-perceived skills and if training interacted with these self-perceptions...

Consumer mental health apps (MHAs) collect and generate mental health-related data on their users, which can be leveraged for research and product improvement studies. Such studies are associated with ethical issues that may be difficult for researchers and app developers to assess. To improve ethical study conduct, governance through rules, agreements and customs could be relied upon, but their translation into practice is subject to barriers. This qualitative interview study with 17 researchers and app developers looked into the role and impact of governance standards on consumer MHA studies...

Background China initiated the "Five No's for Publication" in December 2015 as a response to rising incidents of retraction.Objective Use the number of retracted publications and their original publication time as proxies to investigate the effect of the Five No's policy on academic misconduct.Methods We searched the Retraction Watch Database for research articles published by Chinese scholars from 1 March 2010 to 29 February 2020. The short- and long-term trends of the number of publications were presented by conducting an interrupted time series analysis in quarterly time units...

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PURPOSE: This study aims to systematically analyze the acknowledgment of generative AI tools, particularly ChatGPT, in academic publications. It delves into patterns across multiple dimensions, including geographical distribution, disciplinary affiliations, journals, and institutional representation. METHODOLOGY: Using a dataset from the Dimensions database consisting of 1,226 publications from November 2022 to July 2023, the study employs a variety of analytical techniques, including temporal analysis and distribution mapping across fields of research and geographical locations...

BACKGROUND: Academic article retractions occur across all disciplines, though few studies have examined the association between research topics and retraction rates. OBJECTIVES: We assessed and compared the rate of retraction across several important clinical research topics. METHODS: Information about the number of publications, the number of retractions, the retraction rate, and the time to retraction was collected for articles identified by 15 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms...

With the introduction of the European Health Data Space (EHDS), the secondary use of health data for research purposes is attracting more attention. Secondary health data processing promises to address novel research questions, inform the design of future research and improve healthcare delivery generally. To comply with the existing data protection regulations, the secondary data use must be fair, among other things. However, there is no clear understanding of what fairness means in the context of secondary use of health data for scientific research purposes...

OBJECTIVES: Spin, defined as the misrepresentation of the results of a study, could negate the validity of scientific findings. We aimed to evaluate spin in early published RCTs on pharmacotherapy for COVID-19 with nonsignificant primary outcomes, explore the manifestation of spin, and identify the factors affecting spin in COVID-19 RCTs. METHODS: A systematic review was performed through a search of RCTs from PubMed/Medline, National Institutes of Health, EMBASE, Cochrane, and Web of Science...

We propose a type of DOI-based manuscript, the author expression of concern (AEOC), allowing authors to formally publish their concerns about legitimate procedural problems associated with editors, reviewers, journals or publishers. Managed by a neutral third-party arbitrator or moderator, AEOCs would be limited in size and subjected to fair but strict screening of presented evidence. When an AEOC is approved for publication by an arbitrator, the criticized party would also need to formally respond within a reasonable period, as a "letter to the author(s)", which is also screened by the same arbitrator...