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.

Funders' responsibility to ensure value in research: a self-audit by the Health Research Board Ireland.

As a public funder of health research, the Health Research Board (HRB) Ireland has an obligation to manage its funds well and to maximise the value of the research that it funds. Ways in which research funding can be wasted have been examined by researchers over the years, and a seminal series on research waste was published in the Lancet in 2014. The series systematically analysed every step of the funding lifecycle in five major stages and made recommendations to various actors including research funders. Prompted by its participation in the Ensuring Value in Research Funders' Forum, between June and October 2019 the HRB undertook a self-audit against the 17 recommendations identified in the Lancet series. Key HRB staff collated relevant policies and practices regarding each recommendation and sub-recommendation and assessed the HRB's performance under each heading. The self-assessment reflects the state of HRB policies and practices in October 2019.  Of the 17 recommendations, five were found to be areas of strength and six were found to be areas of partial strength. Areas of strength reflect work over many years such as support for evidence synthesis, strong processes around award selection, driving research integrity and open data including an HRB-funded open publishing platform. Four recommendations were found to be areas for growth. These mostly revolve around real time reporting of study protocols and of ongoing funded research outside of clinical trials. Work is progressing to address some of these areas. Two were found not to apply to the HRB.

PANDA assessment of needs and training opportunities in aquatic animal health.

A survey on training needs and opportunities among aquatic animal health professionals was carried out as part of the EU funded PANDA project. A preliminary analysis of the data revealed that in terms of training participation, over 65% of responders had participated in training within the previous six months and that this training consisted predominantly of short courses or conferences. However, 20% of responders had not participated in training in the previous three or more years, with time and money being the major reasons cited for nonparticipation. Occupation and location in Europe would also appear to have an impact on frequency of training and on the type of training undertaken. Responders' own organisations played a key role in training provision, while international training bodies constituted an important source of applied training. Universities did not play an important role in training. In terms of training needs, newer diagnostic methods for bacterial and viral diseases were the principle training needs identified. Epidemiology and risk analysis were also identified as training needs that are not currently fulfilled. The majority of responders felt that the EU should have more involvement in training provision and formulation of policy around training.