Enhancing Partnerships of Institutions and Journals to Address Concerns About Research Misconduct: Recommendations From a Working Group of Institutional Research Integrity Officers and Journal Editors and Publishers.

Importance: Institutions and journals strive to promote and protect the integrity of the research record, and both groups are equally committed to ensuring the reliability of all published data. Observations: Three US universities coordinated a series of virtual meetings from June 2021 to March 2022 for a working group composed of senior, experienced US research integrity officers (RIOs), journal editors, and publishing staff who are familiar with managing issues of research integrity and publication ethics. The goal of the working group was to improve the collaboration and transparency between institutions and journals to ensure that research misconduct and publication ethics are managed properly and efficiently. Recommendations address the following: identifying proper contacts at institutions and journals, specifying information to share between institutions and journals, correcting the research record, reconsideration of some fundamental research misconduct concepts, and journal policy changes. The working group identified 3 key recommendations to be adopted and implemented to change the status quo for better collaboration between institutions and journals: (1) reconsideration and broadening of the interpretation by institutions of the need-to-know criteria in federal regulations (ie, confidential or sensitive information and data are not disclosed unless there is a need for an individual to know the facts to perform specific jobs or functions), (2) uncoupling the evaluation of the accuracy and validity of research data from the determination of culpability and intent of the individuals involved, and (3) initiating a widespread change for the policies of journals and publishers regarding the timing and appropriateness for contacting institutions, either before or concurrently under certain conditions, when contacting the authors. Conclusions and Relevance: The working group recommends specific changes to the status quo to enable effective communication between institutions and journals. Using confidentiality clauses and agreements to impede sharing does not benefit the scientific community nor the integrity of the research record. However, a careful and informed framework for improving communications and sharing information between institutions and journals can foster better working relationships, trust, transparency, and most importantly, faster resolution to data integrity issues, especially in published literature.

Cooperation & Liaison between Universities & Editors (CLUE): recommendations on best practice.

BACKGROUND: Inaccurate, false or incomplete research publications may mislead readers including researchers and decision-makers. It is therefore important that such problems are identified and rectified promptly. This usually involves collaboration between the research institutions and academic journals involved, but these interactions can be problematic. METHODS: These recommendations were developed following discussions at World Conferences on Research Integrity in 2013 and 2017, and at a specially convened 3-day workshop in 2016 involving participants from 7 countries with expertise in publication ethics and research integrity. The recommendations aim to address issues surrounding cooperation and liaison between institutions (e.g. universities) and journals about possible and actual problems with the integrity of reported research arising before and after publication. RESULTS: The main recommendations are that research institutions should: 1) develop mechanisms for assessing the integrity of reported research (if concerns are raised) that are distinct from processes to determine whether individual researchers have committed misconduct; 2) release relevant sections of reports of research integrity or misconduct investigations to all journals that have published research that was investigated; 3) take responsibility for research performed under their auspices regardless of whether the researcher still works at that institution or how long ago the work was done; 4) work with funders to ensure essential research data is retained for at least 10 years. Journals should: 1) respond to institutions about research integrity cases in a timely manner; 2) have criteria for determining whether, and what type of, information and evidence relating to the integrity of research reports should be passed on to institutions; 3) pass on research integrity concerns to institutions, regardless of whether they intend to accept the work for publication; 4) retain peer review records for at least 10 years to enable the investigation of peer review manipulation or other inappropriate behaviour by authors or reviewers. CONCLUSIONS: Various difficulties can prevent effective cooperation between academic journals and research institutions about research integrity concerns and hinder the correction of the research record if problems are discovered. While the issues and their solutions may vary across different settings, we encourage research institutions, journals and funders to consider how they might improve future collaboration and cooperation on research integrity cases.

The Hong Kong Principles for assessing researchers: Fostering research integrity.

For knowledge to benefit research and society, it must be trustworthy. Trustworthy research is robust, rigorous, and transparent at all stages of design, execution, and reporting. Assessment of researchers still rarely includes considerations related to trustworthiness, rigor, and transparency. We have developed the Hong Kong Principles (HKPs) as part of the 6th World Conference on Research Integrity with a specific focus on the need to drive research improvement through ensuring that researchers are explicitly recognized and rewarded for behaviors that strengthen research integrity. We present five principles: responsible research practices; transparent reporting; open science (open research); valuing a diversity of types of research; and recognizing all contributions to research and scholarly activity. For each principle, we provide a rationale for its inclusion and provide examples where these principles are already being adopted.