Perceptions of Research Integrity Climate in Hungarian Universities: Results from A Survey among Academic Researchers.

Research integrity climate is an important factor that influences an individual's behavior. A strong research integrity culture can lead to better research practices and responsible conduct of research (RCR). Therefore, investigations on organizational climate can be a valuable tool to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each group and develop targeted initiatives. This study aims to assess the perceptions on integrity climate in three universities in Hungary. A cross-sectional study was conducted with PhD students, postdocs, and professors from three Hungarian universities. The survey included demographic questions, such as gender, age, scientific field, academic rank, and the Survey of Organizational Research Climate (SOURCE). A total of 432 participants completed the survey. Our results show that postdocs and assistant professors perceived integrity climate more negatively than PhD students and full professors in every survey scale. Contrarily, PhD students perceive more positively than the other groups. Disciplinary differences show that researchers in the Biomedical sciences perceive regulatory bodies to be fairer when evaluating their projects than those in the Natural sciences. Natural sciences also perceive more negatively how the department values integrity when compared to Humanities. Humanities perceive more positively Advisor/Advisee Relations than Biomedical Sciences. Our results suggest that institutions should pay more attention to early career researchers, especially insecure and temporary positions like postdocs and assistant professors. They should provide RCR resources, socialize them in RCR, and set more reasonable expectations. Moreover, department leaders should develop initiatives to foster better integrity climates.

A scoping review of the literature featuring research ethics and research integrity cases.

BACKGROUND: The areas of Research Ethics (RE) and Research Integrity (RI) are rapidly evolving. Cases of research misconduct, other transgressions related to RE and RI, and forms of ethically questionable behaviors have been frequently published. The objective of this scoping review was to collect RE and RI cases, analyze their main characteristics, and discuss how these cases are represented in the scientific literature. METHODS: The search included cases involving a violation of, or misbehavior, poor judgment, or detrimental research practice in relation to a normative framework. A search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, SCOPUS, JSTOR, Ovid, and Science Direct in March 2018, without language or date restriction. Data relating to the articles and the cases were extracted from case descriptions. RESULTS: A total of 14,719 records were identified, and 388 items were included in the qualitative synthesis. The papers contained 500 case descriptions. After applying the eligibility criteria, 238 cases were included in the analysis. In the case analysis, fabrication and falsification were the most frequently tagged violations (44.9%). The non-adherence to pertinent laws and regulations, such as lack of informed consent and REC approval, was the second most frequently tagged violation (15.7%), followed by patient safety issues (11.1%) and plagiarism (6.9%). 80.8% of cases were from the Medical and Health Sciences, 11.5% from the Natural Sciences, 4.3% from Social Sciences, 2.1% from Engineering and Technology, and 1.3% from Humanities. Paper retraction was the most prevalent sanction (45.4%), followed by exclusion from funding applications (35.5%). CONCLUSIONS: Case descriptions found in academic journals are dominated by discussions regarding prominent cases and are mainly published in the news section of journals. Our results show that there is an overrepresentation of biomedical research cases over other scientific fields compared to its proportion in scientific publications. The cases mostly involve fabrication, falsification, and patient safety issues. This finding could have a significant impact on the academic representation of misbehaviors. The predominance of fabrication and falsification cases might diverge the attention of the academic community from relevant but less visible violations, and from recently emerging forms of misbehaviors.

Research ethics aspects of experimentation with LSD on human subjects: a historical and ethical review.

In this paper our aim is to examine whether research conducted on human participants with LSD-25 (lysergic acid diethylamide) raises unique research ethical questions or demands particular concerns with regard to the design, conduct and follow-up of these studies, and should this be the case, explore and describe those issues. Our analysis is based on reviewing publications up to date which examine the clinical, research and other uses of LSD and those addressing ethical and methodological concerns of these applications, just as some historical examinations of this subject. The first chapters of the paper give an overview regarding the history of LSD-research with human participants, healthy volunteers and patients alike. The remaining chapters have a focus on questions regarding the potential ethical issues of such human trials in the contemporary research ethics framework. We also consider briefly political and regulatory issues regarding this substance that possibly affect its clinical and research applications.

Research in disaster settings: a systematic qualitative review of ethical guidelines.

BACKGROUND: Conducting research during or in the aftermath of disasters poses many specific practical and ethical challenges. This is particularly the case with research involving human subjects. The extraordinary circumstances of research conducted in disaster settings require appropriate regulations to ensure the protection of human participants. The goal of this study is to systematically and qualitatively review the existing ethical guidelines for disaster research by using the constant comparative method (CCM). METHODS: We performed a systematic qualitative review of disaster research ethics guidelines to collect and compare existing regulations. Guidelines were identified by a three-tiered search strategy: 1) searching databases (PubMed and Google Scholar), 2) an Internet search (Google), and 3) a search of the references in the included documents from the first two searches. We used the constant comparative method (CCM) for analysis of included guidelines. RESULTS: Fourteen full text guidelines were included for analysis. The included guidelines covered the period 2000-2014. Qualitative analysis of the included guidelines revealed two core themes: vulnerability and research ethics committee review. Within each of the two core themes, various categories and subcategories were identified. CONCLUSIONS: Some concepts and terms identified in analyzed guidelines are used in an inconsistent manner and applied in different contexts. Conceptual clarity is needed in this area as well as empirical evidence to support the statements and requirements included in analyzed guidelines.

Research integrity guidelines and safeguards in Brazil.

Brazilian research output has been growing annually, and so have its domestic and international research collaborations. Accordingly, it is essential to harmonize research integrity guidance and regulations to ensure research quality. Therefore, this study aims to collect and analyze guidance documents on research integrity from Brazilian research performing organizations (RPO). Research integrity guidance documents, regulations, and policies were retrieved from 60 randomly selected universities in Brazil. The search was conducted via the universities' websites and confirmed by e-mail. The documents were analyzed based on inductive content analysis. Relevant documents from 20 RPOs were identified. 28% of the included institutions have developed their own guidelines or adopted some guidance document on research integrity. Best practices, misconduct and misbehaviors, principles, and institutional policies regarding sanctions differ between universities. The RPOs where research integrity guidance documents could be identified are concentrated mainly in the southeastern and southern areas. The number and distribution heterogeneity highlights the need to increase awareness and create regulatory documents on research integrity in Brazilian universities. Further Research Performing and Funding Organizations' initiatives are needed to foster research integrity in Brazil and harmonize it with international standards.

Perceptions of publication pressure among Hungarian researchers: Differences across career stage, gender, and scientific field.

Excessive publication pressure has been associated with detrimental aspects for individual researchers and scientific integrity but has not been well-studied in Eastern European countries. The aim of this study is to assess perceived publication pressure and its relationship with career stage, scientific field, and gender in Hungary. The survey included demographic questions, such as gender, age, scientific field, career stage, and the Revised Publication Pressure Questionnaire (PPQr). A total of 408 respondents completed the survey, 46% were female, and 54% were male. 45% are PhD students, 17% are postdocs or assistant professors, and 38% are associate or full professors. 31% are from the Biomedical Sciences, 39% from Natural Sciences, 18% from Social Sciences, and 12% from Humanities. Our results showed no significant disciplinary differences in perceived publication pressure. PhD students perceived a greater lack of resources than postdocs and professors. The same applied to postdocs and assistant professors when compared to associate professors. The findings also showed that female researchers perceive greater stress than male researchers. Our study highlights the need to improve mentoring during the development of early-career researchers. It also emphasizes the importance of organizational structures developing policies or strategies to address gender differences in academia.

The legacy of the Hwang case: research misconduct in biosciences.

This paper focuses on the infamous case of Hwang Woo Suk, the South-Korean national hero and once celebrated pioneer of stem cell research. After briefly discussing the evolution of his publication and research scandal in Science, I will attempt to outline the main reactions that emerged within scientific and bioethical discourses on the problem of research misconduct in contemporary biosciences. What were the ethical lapses in his research? What kind of research misconduct has been identified? How this kind of misconduct affects scientific integrity? How to avoid it? Focusing on these questions, the paper interprets the Hwang's case as a case study that might shed light on the worst aspects of highstakes global science. This case presents a group of problems that might endanger scientific integrity and public trust. Regulatory oversight, ethical requirements and institutional safeguards are often viewed by the scientific community as merely decelerating scientific progress and causing delays in the application of treatments. The Hwang's case represents how unimpeded progress works in contemporary science. Thus, the case might shed light on the often neglected benefits of "the social control of science".

[Informed consent: a pragmatic view]. / A tájékozott beleegyezésrol gyakorlati szempontból.

The author highlights some pragmatic aspects of informed consent that could help to bridge the gap between the currently valid legal requirements and the practical realities of providing medical information in Hungarian health-care settings. One of the crucial point of informed consent is whether the patient properly understood the provided medical information. Consequently, effective communication becomes an inevitable condition of providing informed consent. The results and insights coming from psychological research--concerning lay understanding of medical information, of the readability of consent forms, and especially of the lay understanding of statistical information, and risk communication--could help to create a better practice of medical communication that could satisfy both ethical and legal requirements. The author argues as well for creating more concrete and practically oriented guidelines concerning informed consent that would also help to increase the quality of medical information giving. These might help us approach the medical ideal that was conceptualised in the doctrine of informed consent.

The influence of patient gender on medical and psychology students' illness attributions: experiences with a narrative technique.

We attempted to identify whether and how the gender of the patient influences interpretations of an illness narrative. We investigated how medical and psychology undergraduates' (n = 313) views change according to the patient's gender, students' gender, and field of study. A short story about a female patient was chosen as stimulus material, and a gender-modified version with a male protagonist was created for comparison. Responses were content analyzed by qualitative and quantitative methods. The female patient elicited more detailed descriptions and somatizing attributions. The gender of students had a stronger impact on responses than their field of study.

Gene concepts and genethics: beyond exceptionalism.

The discursive explosion that was provoked by the new genetics could support the impression that the ethical and social problems posed by the new genetics are somehow exceptional in their very nature. According to this view we are faced with special ethical and social problems that create a challenge so fundamental that the special label of genethics is needless to justify. The historical account regarding the evolution of the gene concepts could serve us to highlight the limits of what we know about genes and what we can do with genes. The widespread notion about the exceptionality of genetic knowledge and its applicative possibilities is hardly justifiable and leads to misunderstandings regarding the conceptualization of the ethical and social problems we might face. Following a more realistic interpretation of the role of genes in human life we might avoid a whole set of fictive dilemmas and counterproductive regulatory efforts in bioethics. Bioethical discourse should move from the gene-centered scientific discourse toward the more sophisticated and complex discourses where human development represented as a matter of complex interactions between genomes and environments, between genes, educational factors, nutritional regimes, and other different developmental resources. If a gene is seen as one among the different developmental resources that are shaping a given human trait then both genethics and genetic exceptionalism could hardly be represented as a justified approach in discussing the ethical and social problems of genetics.

Genetic information in the age of genohype.

We will analyse the representations and conceptualisation of genetics and genetic information in bioethical discourse. Genetics and genetic information is widely believed to be revolutionizing medicine and is sometimes misconceived as having a high predictive value compared to traditional diagnostics. We will attempt to present the inherent limitations of genetic information within its health care context. We will also argue against the exceptional treatment of genetic information that seems to govern bioethical reflection and regulatory approaches. And finally, we will make the claim that geneticization should be seen as a more serious threat to our privacy, autonomy and freedom, than genetic discrimination.