Researchers on research integrity: a survey of European and American researchers.

BACKGROUND: Reports of questionable or detrimental research practices (QRPs) call into question the reliability of scientific evidence and the trustworthiness of research. A critical component of the research ecosystem is the organization within which research takes place. We conducted a survey to explore the attitudes and beliefs of European and American researchers about the organisations in which they work, their own research practices and their attitudes towards research integrity and research integrity policies. METHODS: We administered an online survey (International Research Integrity Survey (IRIS)) to 2,300 active researchers based in the US and 45,000 in Europe (including UK, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland).  We employed a stratified probability sample of the authors of research articles published between 2016 and 2020 included in Clarivate's Web of Science citation database. Coverage includes researchers in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and medical sciences, who hold at least a master's level degree. RESULTS: In comparison to researchers in the US, European researchers admit to more QRPs and are less confident in maintaining high research integrity (RI) standards. In the US and Europe, many researchers judge their organization to fall short of best RI practice. All researchers recognize the benefits of RI, reliable knowledge and the trust of colleagues and the public, and there is support for RI training particularly among Europeans. CONCLUSION: To create and maintain a culture of integrity in scientific research, a collective commitment from researchers, their institutions and funders is needed. Researchers rely on many channels of communication about research integrity and thus the involvement of many different participants in the research system is required to make improvements. Policies must be developed to reinforce best practice rather than being seen as an irrelevance to the real business of research.

Co-creating Research Integrity Education Guidelines for Research Institutions.

To foster research integrity (RI), research institutions should develop a continuous RI education approach, addressing various target groups. To support institutions to achieve this, we developed RI education guidelines together with RI experts and research administrators, exploring similarities and differences in recommendations across target groups, as well as recommendations about RI education using approaches other than formal RI training. We used an iterative co-creative process. We conducted four half-day online co-creation workshops with 16 participants in total, which were informed by the RI education evidence-base. In the first two workshops, participants generated ideas for guidelines' content, focusing on different target groups and various approaches to RI education. Based on this content we developed first drafts of the guidelines. Participants in the third and fourth workshop refined those drafts. We next organized a working group which further prioritized, reorganized, and optimized the content of the guidelines. We developed four guidelines on RI education focusing on (a) bachelor, master and PhD students; (b) post-doctorate and senior researchers; (c) other RI stakeholders; as well as (d) continuous RI education. Across guidelines, we recommend mandatory RI training; follow-up refresher training; informal discussions about RI; appropriate rewards and incentives for active participation in RI education; and evaluation of RI educational events. Our work provides experience-based co-created guidance to research institutions on what to consider when developing a successful RI education strategy. Each guideline is offered as a distinct, publicly available tool in our toolbox ( www.sops4ri.eu/toolbox ) which institutions can access, adapt and implement to meet their institution-specific RI education needs.Trial registration https://osf.io/zej5b .

The failure of success: four lessons learned in five years of research on research integrity and research assessments.

In the past 5 years, we captured the perspectives from a broad array of research stakeholders to better understand the impact that current approaches to success and research assessment may have on the integrity and the quality of research. Here, we translate our findings in four actions that are urgently needed to foster better research. First, we need to address core research structures to overcome systemic problems of the research enterprise; second, we must realign research assessments to value elements that advance and strengthen science; third, we need to remodel, diversify, and secure research careers; and finally, we need to unite and coordinate efforts for change.

Designing and implementing a research integrity promotion plan: Recommendations for research funders.

Various stakeholders in science have put research integrity high on their agenda. Among them, research funders are prominently placed to foster research integrity by requiring that the organizations and individual researchers they support make an explicit commitment to research integrity. Moreover, funders need to adopt appropriate research integrity practices themselves. To facilitate this, we recommend that funders develop and implement a Research Integrity Promotion Plan (RIPP). This Consensus View offers a range of examples of how funders are already promoting research integrity, distills 6 core topics that funders should cover in a RIPP, and provides guidelines on how to develop and implement a RIPP. We believe that the 6 core topics we put forward will guide funders towards strengthening research integrity policy in their organization and guide the researchers and research organizations they fund.

How can research institutions support responsible supervision and leadership?

Supervisors, PhD candidates and research leaders are expected to be the primary persons responsible for maintaining a high research integrity standards. However, research institutions should support them in this effort, by promoting responsible supervision and leadership practices. Although it is clear that institutions play a crucial role in this, there is a lack of institutional guidelines focusing on these topics. The development of the experience-based guidelines presented in this article consisted of a multi-step, iterative approach. We engaged 16 experts in supervision and research integrity in four workshops to co-create institutional guidelines for responsible supervision and leadership. To revise the guidelines and make them operational, we formed a dedicated working group and consulted experts in the field of supervision. This resulted in three guidelines focusing on what institutions can do to support: responsible supervision, PhD candidates during their PhD trajectory, and responsible leadership. The recommendations focus on the rights and responsibilities of the three targeted stakeholder groups, and institutions' responsibilities for the personal development and well-being of supervisors, PhD candidates and research leaders. The three guidelines can be used by institutions to foster responsible supervision and leadership by supporting researchers to conduct research with integrity.

Advancing science or advancing careers? Researchers' opinions on success indicators.

The way in which we assess researchers has been under the radar in the past few years. Critics argue that current research assessments focus on productivity and that they increase unhealthy pressures on scientists. Yet, the precise ways in which assessments should change is still open for debate. We circulated a survey with Flemish researchers to understand how they work, and how they would rate the relevance of specific indicators used in research assessments. We found that most researchers worked far beyond their expected working schedule. We also found that, although they spent most of their time doing research, respondents wished they could dedicate more time to it and spend less time writing grants and performing other activities such as administrative duties and meetings. When looking at success indicators, we found that indicators related to openness, transparency, quality, and innovation were perceived as highly important in advancing science, but as relatively overlooked in career advancement. Conversely, indicators which denoted of prestige and competition were generally rated as important to career advancement, but irrelevant or even detrimental in advancing science. Open comments from respondents further revealed that, although indicators which indicate openness, transparency, and quality (e.g., publishing open access, publishing negative findings, sharing data, etc.) should ultimately be valued more in research assessments, the resources and support currently in place were insufficient to allow researchers to endorse such practices. In other words, current research assessments are inadequate and ignore practices which are essential in contributing to the advancement of science. Yet, before we change the way in which researchers are being assessed, supporting infrastructures must be put in place to ensure that researchers are able to commit to the activities that may benefit the advancement of science.

Rethinking success, integrity, and culture in research (part 2) - a multi-actor qualitative study on problems of science.

BACKGROUND: Research misconduct and questionable research practices have been the subject of increasing attention in the past few years. But despite the rich body of research available, few empirical works also include the perspectives of non-researcher stakeholders. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with policy makers, funders, institution leaders, editors or publishers, research integrity office members, research integrity community members, laboratory technicians, researchers, research students, and former-researchers who changed career to inquire on the topics of success, integrity, and responsibilities in science. We used the Flemish biomedical landscape as a baseline to be able to grasp the views of interacting and complementary actors in a system setting. RESULTS: Given the breadth of our results, we divided our findings in a two-paper series with the current paper focusing on the problems that affect the integrity and research culture. We first found that different actors have different perspectives on the problems that affect the integrity and culture of research. Problems were either linked to personalities and attitudes, or to the climates in which researchers operate. Elements that were described as essential for success (in the associate paper) were often thought to accentuate the problems of research climates by disrupting research culture and research integrity. Even though all participants agreed that current research climates need to be addressed, participants generally did not feel responsible nor capable of initiating change. Instead, respondents revealed a circle of blame and mistrust between actor groups. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings resonate with recent debates, and extrapolate a few action points which might help advance the discussion. First, the research integrity debate must revisit and tackle the way in which researchers are assessed. Second, approaches to promote better science need to address the impact that research climates have on research integrity and research culture rather than to capitalize on individual researchers' compliance. Finally, inter-actor dialogues and shared decision making must be given priority to ensure that the perspectives of the full research system are captured. Understanding the relations and interdependency between these perspectives is key to be able to address the problems of science. STUDY REGISTRATION: https://osf.io/33v3m.

Rethinking success, integrity, and culture in research (part 1) - a multi-actor qualitative study on success in science.

BACKGROUND: Success shapes the lives and careers of scientists. But success in science is difficult to define, let alone to translate in indicators that can be used for assessment. In the past few years, several groups expressed their dissatisfaction with the indicators currently used for assessing researchers. But given the lack of agreement on what should constitute success in science, most propositions remain unanswered. This paper aims to complement our understanding of success in science and to document areas of tension and conflict in research assessments. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with policy makers, funders, institution leaders, editors or publishers, research integrity office members, research integrity community members, laboratory technicians, researchers, research students, and former-researchers who changed career to inquire on the topics of success, integrity, and responsibilities in science. We used the Flemish biomedical landscape as a baseline to be able to grasp the views of interacting and complementary actors in a system setting. RESULTS: Given the breadth of our results, we divided our findings in a two-paper series, with the current paper focusing on what defines and determines success in science. Respondents depicted success as a multi-factorial, context-dependent, and mutable construct. Success appeared to be an interaction between characteristics from the researcher (Who), research outputs (What), processes (How), and luck. Interviewees noted that current research assessments overvalued outputs but largely ignored the processes deemed essential for research quality and integrity. Interviewees suggested that science needs a diversity of indicators that are transparent, robust, and valid, and that also allow a balanced and diverse view of success; that assessment of scientists should not blindly depend on metrics but also value human input; and that quality should be valued over quantity. CONCLUSIONS: The objective of research assessments may be to encourage good researchers, to benefit society, or simply to advance science. Yet we show that current assessments fall short on each of these objectives. Open and transparent inter-actor dialogue is needed to understand what research assessments aim for and how they can best achieve their objective. STUDY REGISTRATION: osf.io/33v3m.

A Decade of Empirical Research on Research Integrity: What Have We (Not) Looked At?

Research on research integrity has become a field of its own; yet, a comprehensive overview the field is still missing. We systematically searched SCOPUS, Web of Science, and PubMed for relevant articles published between 2005 and 2015. We extracted the topic, methodology, focus, and citations from each articles. From the 986 articles included, only 342 report empirical data. Empirical papers predominantly targeted researchers and students. Although empirical articles questioning causes for misconduct mostly blamed research systems (e.g., pressure, competition) for detrimental research practices, articles proposing approaches to foster integrity focused on researchers' awareness and compliance rather than on system changes. Involving nonresearchers and reconnecting what is known to what is proposed may help research on research integrity move forward.

Declaring Conflict of Interest - Current State of Affairs in the Ophthalmic Literature.

The importance of transparency with financial ties in biomedical research is widely recognized, and most peer-reviewed journals require declarations of Conflicts of Interest (COI). Nonetheless, variability in the consistency of declarations of COI has been sparsely assessed. To assess consistency and rates of COI declarations in the ophthalmic literature and the effectiveness of journal COI policies. We analyzed consistency and completeness of declaration of COI in the ophthalmic literature and compared the levels of completeness to specific journal requirements. Six-hundred forty-two peer reviewed articles satisfied the inclusion criteria. In 64%, COIs were unreported, in 25% declaration of COI was incomplete, and 11% of the articles reviewed had complete declaration of COI. Of the 33 journals in which the most frequently published authors' articles appeared, 10 required the authors to complete the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) form or an equivalent form, but this did not affect the rates of COI declaration. In a random sampling of the most frequently published authors in the field of ophthalmology, declaration of COI was low and highly inconsistent. Requiring a standardized COI form has no significant effect on the rate of accurate COI reporting. Our findings lend support to the growing body of literature that shows that journals and editors may need to take a more active role in ensuring accurate and consistent COI reporting.

European Universities' Guidance on Research Integrity and Misconduct.

Research integrity is imperative to good science. Nonetheless, many countries and institutions develop their own integrity guidance, thereby risking incompatibilities with guidance of collaborating institutions. We retrieved guidance for academic integrity and misconduct of 18 universities from 10 European countries and investigated accessibility, general content, principles endorsed, and definitions of misconduct. Accessibility and content differ substantially between institutions. There are general trends of common principles of integrity and definitions of misconduct, yet differences remain. Parallel with previous research, we distinguish different approaches in integrity guidance; one emphasizes broad values of integrity, and the other details negative behaviors of misconduct. We propose that a balance between both approaches is necessary to preserve trust, meaning, and realism of guidance on research integrity.

Using suggestion to modulate automatic processes: from Stroop to McGurk and beyond.

Cognitive scientists typically classify cognitive processes as either controlled or automatic. Whereas controlled processes are slow and effortful, automatic processes are fast and involuntary. Over the past decade, we have propelled a research trajectory investigating how top-down influence in the form of suggestion can allow individuals to modulate the automaticity of cognitive processes. Here we present an overarching array of converging findings that collectively indicate that certain individuals can derail involuntary processes, such as reading, by "unringing" the proverbial bell. We examine replications of these effects from both our own laboratory and independent groups, and extend our Stroop findings to several other well-established automatic paradigms, including the McGurk effect. We thus demonstrate how, in the case of highly suggestible individuals, suggestion seems to wield control over a process that is likely even more automatic than the Stroop effect. Finally, we present findings from two novel experimental paradigms exploring the potential of shifting automaticity in the opposite direction - i.e., transforming, without practice, a controlled task into one that is automatic. Drawing on related evidence from the neuroscience of contemplative practices, we discuss how these findings pave the road to a more scientific understanding of voluntary control and automaticity, and expound on their possible experimental and therapeutic applications.