Navigating the Science System: Research Integrity and Academic Survival Strategies.

Research Integrity (RI) is high on the agenda of both institutions and science policy. The European Union as well as national ministries of science have launched ambitious initiatives to combat misconduct and breaches of research integrity. Often, such initiatives entail attempts to regulate scientific behavior through guidelines that institutions and academic communities can use to more easily identify and deal with cases of misconduct. Rather than framing misconduct as a result of an information deficit, we instead conceptualize Questionable Research Practices (QRPs) as attempts by researchers to reconcile epistemic and social forms of uncertainty in knowledge production. Drawing on previous literature, we define epistemic uncertainty as the inherent intellectual unpredictability of scientific inquiry, while social uncertainty arises from the human-made conditions for scientific work. Our core argument-developed on the basis of 30 focus group interviews with researchers across different fields and European countries-is that breaches of research integrity can be understood as attempts to loosen overly tight coupling between the two forms of uncertainty. Our analytical approach is not meant to relativize or excuse misconduct, but rather to offer a more fine-grained perspective on what exactly it is that researchers want to accomplish by engaging in it. Based on the analysis, we conclude by proposing some concrete ways in which institutions and academic communities could try to reconcile epistemic and social uncertainties on a more collective level, thereby reducing incentives for researchers to engage in misconduct.

Bridging the gap - how to walk the talk on supporting early career researchers.

Early career researchers (ECRs) play a crucial role in European and nationally funded research projects. They are at the forefront of planning, conducting, analysing, and reporting research. As part of the SOPs4RI project funded by the European Commission, we, as ECRs and members of this project's consortium, were given the opportunity to reflect on our role, obstacles, and possible opportunities that we experienced. Although several steps have been already taken to support early career researchers, more concrete actions have to be pursued. In our opinion, the EC should take the lead and serve as a global frontrunner (taken as exemplary also by national funding agencies) in implementing initiatives to support early career researchers during their research trajectory. We opine that the European Commission should explicitly (i) require the creation of a support system in which early career researchers will be able to build new skills and capacity, (ii) encourage and facilitate more involvement of early career researchers in decision-making roles of EC-funded projects, and (iii) provide resources to support career continuity between fixed-term contracts. The suggested actions can help early career researchers build competencies and expertise to establish stability and continuity within the research environment or to embrace and excel in careers outside academia.

Factors influencing the promotion and implementation of research integrity in research performing and research funding organizations: A scoping review.

Promoting and implementing research integrity is considered the joint responsibility and effort of multiple stakeholders in the research community. We conducted a scoping review and analyzed 236 research articles and gray literature publications from biomedical sciences, social sciences, natural sciences (including engineering), and humanities that dealt with the factors that may positively or negatively impact the promotion and implementation of research integrity. Critical appraisal of evidence was performed for studies describing interventions aimed at research integrity promotion in order to provide insight into the effectiveness of these interventions. The results of this scoping review provide a comprehensive taxonomy of factors with positive or negative impact and their relatedness to individual researchers, research performing and funding organizations, and the system of science. Moreover, the results show that efforts for fostering and promoting research integrity should be implemented at all three levels (researcher, institution, system) simultaneously to deliver greater adherence and implementation of research integrity practices. Although various educational interventions aiming at research integrity promotion exist, we were not able to conclude on the effectiveness of explored interventions due to the methodological quality issues in the studies.