Eleven strategies for making reproducible research and open science training the norm at research institutions.

Reproducible research and open science practices have the potential to accelerate scientific progress by allowing others to reuse research outputs, and by promoting rigorous research that is more likely to yield trustworthy results. However, these practices are uncommon in many fields, so there is a clear need for training that helps and encourages researchers to integrate reproducible research and open science practices into their daily work. Here, we outline eleven strategies for making training in these practices the norm at research institutions. The strategies, which emerged from a virtual brainstorming event organized in collaboration with the German Reproducibility Network, are concentrated in three areas: (i) adapting research assessment criteria and program requirements; (ii) training; (iii) building communities. We provide a brief overview of each strategy, offer tips for implementation, and provide links to resources. We also highlight the importance of allocating resources and monitoring impact. Our goal is to encourage researchers - in their roles as scientists, supervisors, mentors, instructors, and members of curriculum, hiring or evaluation committees - to think creatively about the many ways they can promote reproducible research and open science practices in their institutions.

Biomedical supervisors' role modeling of open science practices.

Supervision is one important way to socialize Ph.D. candidates into open and responsible research. We hypothesized that one should be more likely to identify open science practices (here publishing open access and sharing data) in empirical publications that were part of a Ph.D. thesis when the Ph.D. candidates' supervisors engaged in these practices compared to those whose supervisors did not or less often did. Departing from thesis repositories at four Dutch University Medical centers, we included 211 pairs of supervisors and Ph.D. candidates, resulting in a sample of 2062 publications. We determined open access status using UnpaywallR and Open Data using Oddpub, where we also manually screened publications with potential open data statements. Eighty-three percent of our sample was published openly, and 9% had open data statements. Having a supervisor who published open access more often than the national average was associated with an odds of 1.99 to publish open access. However, this effect became nonsignificant when correcting for institutions. Having a supervisor who shared data was associated with 2.22 (CI:1.19-4.12) times the odds to share data compared to having a supervisor that did not. This odds ratio increased to 4.6 (CI:1.86-11.35) after removing false positives. The prevalence of open data in our sample was comparable to international studies; open access rates were higher. Whilst Ph.D. candidates spearhead initiatives to promote open science, this study adds value by investigating the role of supervisors in promoting open science.

In Defense of the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity: Response to Radder.

We assess Radder's criticisms of the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and show that they either miss their mark or depend on controversial background assumptions about the purpose of the Code. Although Radder raises important questions about the broader roles and purposes of research in society, his conclusion that the Code should be revised in the ways he proposes is unjustified.

Superb supervision: A pilot study on training supervisors to convey responsible research practices onto their PhD candidates.

One way to strengthen research integrity, is through supervision. According to previous research, a supervisor should be well-versed in responsible research practices (RRPs) and possess the necessary interpersonal skills to convey RRPs. We developed a 3-day pilot training for PhD supervisors that combined RRPs and interpersonal skills. Our aim was to assess: perceptions regarding supervision skills (before and after the pilot) and participants' views on combining RRPs and interpersonal skills. Before and after the pilot, we sent the Research Supervision Quality Evaluation survey to the participating PhD supervisors and their PhD candidates. The pilot was concluded with a focus group where participants deliberated over the combination of training in interpersonal skills and RRPs and whether such training should become compulsory. Both supervisors and PhD candidates were more positive about the supervisor's interpersonal skills and the ability to foster RRPs after the training. Participants were enthusiastic about the training's dual focus but believed that making the training compulsory would be undesirable. The results highlight the potential of RRPs training for supervisors. However, caution is warranted, as the results regard a small sample of volunteering supervisors, underscoring the need for larger programs to foster responsible supervision that are rigorously evaluated.

Preclinical efficacy in investigator's brochures: Stakeholders' views on measures to improve completeness and robustness.

AIMS: Research ethics committees and regulatory agencies assess whether the benefits of a proposed early-stage clinical trial outweigh the risks based on preclinical studies reported in investigator's brochures (IBs). Recent studies have indicated that the reporting of preclinical evidence presented in IBs does not enable proper risk-benefit assessment. We interviewed different stakeholders (regulators, research ethics committee members, preclinical and clinical researchers, ethicists, and metaresearchers) about their views on measures to increase the completeness and robustness of preclinical evidence reporting in IBs. METHODS: This study was preregistered (https://osf.io/nvzwy/). We used purposive sampling and invited stakeholders to participate in an online semistructured interview between March and June 2021. Themes were derived using inductive content analysis. We used a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats matrix to categorize our findings. RESULTS: Twenty-seven international stakeholders participated. The interviewees pointed to several strengths and opportunities to improve completeness and robustness, mainly more transparent and systematic justifications for the included studies. However, weaknesses and threats were mentioned that could undermine efforts to enable a more thorough assessment: The interviewees stressed that current review practices are sufficient to ensure the safe conduct of first-in-human trials. They feared that changes to the IB structure or review process could overburden stakeholders and slow drug development. CONCLUSION: In principle, more robust decision-making processes align with the interests of all stakeholders and with many current initiatives to increase the translatability of preclinical research and limit uninformative or ill-justified trials early in the development process. Further research should investigate measures that could be implemented to benefit all stakeholders.

Generating evidence on privacy outcomes to inform privacy risk management: A way forward?

Effective and efficient privacy risk management (PRM) is a necessary condition to support digitalization in health care and secondary use of patient data in research. To reduce privacy risks, current PRM frameworks are rooted in an approach trying to reduce undesired technical/organizational outcomes such as broken encryption or unintentional data disclosure. Comparing this with risk management in preventive or therapeutic medicine, a key difference becomes apparent: in health-related risk management, medicine focuses on person-specific health outcomes, whereas PRM mostly targets more indirect, technical/organizational outcomes. In this paper, we illustrate and discuss how a PRM approach based on evidence of person-specific privacy outcomes might look using three consecutive steps: i) a specification of undesired person-specific privacy outcomes, ii) empirical assessments of their frequency and severity, and iii) empirical studies on how effectively the available PRM interventions reduce their frequency or severity. After an introduction of these three steps, we cover their status quo and outline open questions and PRM-specific challenges in need of further conceptual clarification and feasibility studies. Specific challenges of an outcome-oriented approach to PRM include the potential delays between concrete threats manifesting and the resulting person/group-specific privacy outcomes. Moreover, new ways of exploiting privacy-sensitive information to harm individuals could be developed in the future. The challenges described are of technical, legal, ethical, financial and resource-oriented nature. In health research, however, there is explicit discussion about how to overcome such challenges to make important outcome-based assessments as feasible as possible. This paper concludes that it might be the time to have this discussion in the PRM field as well.

Promoting trust in research and researchers: How open science and research integrity are intertwined.

Proponents of open science often refer to issues pertaining to research integrity and vice versa. In this commentary, we argue that concepts such as responsible research practices, transparency, and open science are connected to one another, but that they each have a different focus. We argue that responsible research practices focus more on the rigorous conduct of research, transparency focuses predominantly on the complete reporting of research, and open science's core focus is mostly about dissemination of research. Doing justice to these concepts requires action from researchers and research institutions to make research with integrity possible, easy, normative, and rewarding. For each of these levels from the Center for Open Science pyramid of behaviour change, we provide suggestions on what researchers and research institutions can do to promote a culture of research integrity. We close with a brief reflection on initiatives by other research communities and stakeholders and make a call to those working in the fields of research integrity and open science to pay closer attention to one other's work.

Finding the best fit for improving reproducibility: reflections from the QUEST Center for Responsible Research.

Increasing the reproducibility and trustworthiness of biomedical research requires engaging stakeholders from all levels in an institutional setting. The QUEST Center for Responsible Research aims to develop and implement new approaches to improve the culture and practice of research, tailored to the needs of these stakeholders. Members of the QUEST Center organised a brainstorm to reflect on the challenges and new opportunities encountered in implementing different projects through QUEST and share the lessons that working groups have learned over the first five years. The authors informally surveyed and interviewed working groups where relevant and highlight common themes that have influenced the success of many projects, including top-down and bottom-up engagement, managing expectations, the availability of expertise, ensuring sustainability, and considering incentives. The commentary authors conclude by encouraging the research community to view initiatives that promote reproducibility not as a one-size-fits-all undertaking, but rather as an opportunity to unite stakeholders and customise drivers of cultural change.

Stakeholders' views on an institutional dashboard with metrics for responsible research.

Concerns about research waste have fueled debate about incentivizing individual researchers and research institutions to conduct responsible research. We showed stakeholders a proof-of-principle dashboard with quantitative metrics of responsible research practices at University Medical Centers (UMCs). Our research question was: What are stakeholders' views on a dashboard that displays the adoption of responsible research practices on a UMC-level? We recruited stakeholders (UMC leadership, support staff, funders, and experts in responsible research) to participate in online interviews. We applied content analysis to understand what stakeholders considered the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the dashboard and its metrics. Twenty-eight international stakeholders participated in online interviews. Stakeholders considered the dashboard helpful in providing a baseline before designing interventions and appreciated the focus on concrete behaviors. Main weaknesses concerned the lack of an overall narrative justifying the choice of metrics. Stakeholders hoped the dashboard would be supplemented with other metrics in the future but feared that making the dashboard public might put UMCs in a bad light. Our findings furthermore suggest a need for discussion with stakeholders to develop an overarching framework for responsible research evaluation and to get research institutions on board.

Explaining variance in perceived research misbehavior: results from a survey among academic researchers in Amsterdam.

BACKGROUND: Concerns about research misbehavior in academic science have sparked interest in the factors that may explain research misbehavior. Often three clusters of factors are distinguished: individual factors, climate factors and publication factors. Our research question was: to what extent can individual, climate and publication factors explain the variance in frequently perceived research misbehaviors? METHODS: From May 2017 until July 2017, we conducted a survey study among academic researchers in Amsterdam. The survey included three measurement instruments that we previously reported individual results of and here we integrate these findings. RESULTS: One thousand two hundred ninety-eight researchers completed the survey (response rate: 17%). Results showed that individual, climate and publication factors combined explained 34% of variance in perceived frequency of research misbehavior. Individual factors explained 7%, climate factors explained 22% and publication factors 16%. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that the perceptions of the research climate play a substantial role in explaining variance in research misbehavior. This suggests that efforts to improve departmental norms might have a salutary effect on behavior.

Researchers' Perceptions of a Responsible Research Climate: A Multi Focus Group Study.

The research climate plays a key role in fostering integrity in research. However, little is known about what constitutes a responsible research climate. We investigated academic researchers' perceptions on this through focus group interviews. We recruited researchers from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Amsterdam University Medical Center to participate in focus group discussions that consisted of researchers from similar academic ranks and disciplinary fields. We asked participants to reflect on the characteristics of a responsible research climate, the barriers they perceived and which interventions they thought fruitful to improve the research climate. Discussions were recorded and transcribed at verbatim. We used inductive content analysis to analyse the focus group transcripts. We conducted 12 focus groups with 61 researchers in total. We identified fair evaluation, openness, sufficient time, integrity, trust and freedom to be mentioned as important characteristics of a responsible research climate. Main perceived barriers were lack of support, unfair evaluation policies, normalization of overwork and insufficient supervision of early career researchers. Possible interventions suggested by the participants centered around improving support, discussing expectations and improving the quality of supervision. Some of the elements of a responsible research climate identified by participants are reflected in national and international codes of conduct, such as trust and openness. Although it may seem hard to change the research climate, we believe that the realisation that the research climate is suboptimal should provide the impetus for change informed by researchers' experiences and opinions.

Researchers' perceptions of research misbehaviours: a mixed methods study among academic researchers in Amsterdam.

BACKGROUND: There is increasing evidence that research misbehaviour is common, especially the minor forms. Previous studies on research misbehaviour primarily focused on biomedical and social sciences, and evidence from natural sciences and humanities is scarce. We investigated what academic researchers in Amsterdam perceived to be detrimental research misbehaviours in their respective disciplinary fields. METHODS: We used an explanatory sequential mixed methods design. First, survey participants from four disciplinary fields rated perceived frequency and impact of research misbehaviours from a list of 60. We then combined these into a top five ranking of most detrimental research misbehaviours at the aggregate level, stratified by disciplinary field. Second, in focus group interviews, participants from each academic rank and disciplinary field were asked to reflect on the most relevant research misbehaviours for their disciplinary field. We used participative ranking methodology inducing participants to obtain consensus on which research misbehaviours are most detrimental. RESULTS: In total, 1080 researchers completed the survey (response rate: 15%) and 61 participated in the focus groups (3 three to 8 eight researchers per group). Insufficient supervision consistently ranked highest in the survey regardless of disciplinary field and the focus groups confirmed this. Important themes in the focus groups were insufficient supervision, sloppy science, and sloppy peer review. Biomedical researchers and social science researchers were primarily concerned with sloppy science and insufficient supervision. Natural sciences and humanities researchers discussed sloppy reviewing and theft of ideas by reviewers, a form of plagiarism. Focus group participants further provided examples of particular research misbehaviours they were confronted with and how these impacted their work as a researcher. CONCLUSION: We found insufficient supervision and various forms of sloppy science to score highly on aggregate detrimental impact throughout all disciplinary fields. Researchers from the natural sciences and humanities also perceived nepotism to be of major impact on the aggregate level. The natural sciences regarded fabrication of data of major impact as well. The focus group interviews helped to understand how researchers interpreted 'insufficient supervision'. Besides, the focus group participants added insight into sloppy science in practice. Researchers from the natural sciences and humanities added new research misbehaviours concerning their disciplinary fields to the list, such as the stealing of ideas before publication. This improves our understanding of research misbehaviour beyond the social and biomedical fields.

Value pluralism in research integrity.

Both scientists and society at large have rightfully become increasingly concerned about research integrity in recent decades. In response, codes of conduct for research have been developed and elaborated. We show that these codes contain substantial pluralism. First, there is metaphysical pluralism in that codes include values, norms, and virtues. Second, there is axiological pluralism, because there are different categories of values, norms, and virtues: epistemic, moral, professional, social, and legal. Within and between these different categories, norms can be incommensurable or incompatible. Codes of conduct typically do not specify how to handle situations where different norms pull in different directions. We review some attempts to develop an ordering of different sorts of norm violations based on a common measure for their seriousness. We argue that they all fail to give adequate guidance for resolving cases of incommensurable and conflicting norms. We conclude that value pluralism is inherent to codes of conduct in research integrity. The application of codes needs careful reasoning and judgment together with an intellectually humble attitude that acknowledges the inevitability of value pluralism.

Perceived publication pressure in Amsterdam: Survey of all disciplinary fields and academic ranks.

Publications determine to a large extent the possibility to stay in academia ("publish or perish"). While some pressure to publish may incentivise high quality research, too much publication pressure is likely to have detrimental effects on both the scientific enterprise and on individual researchers. Our research question was: What is the level of perceived publication pressure in the four academic institutions in Amsterdam and does the pressure to publish differ between academic ranks and disciplinary fields? Investigating researchers in Amsterdam with the revised Publication Pressure Questionnaire, we find that a negative attitude towards the current publication climate is present across academic ranks and disciplinary fields. Postdocs and assistant professors (M = 3.42) perceive the greatest publication stress and PhD-students (M = 2.44) perceive a significant lack of resources to relieve publication stress. Results indicate the need for a healthier publication climate where the quality and integrity of research is rewarded.

Personally perceived publication pressure: revising the Publication Pressure Questionnaire (PPQ) by using work stress models.

BACKGROUND: The emphasis on impact factors and the quantity of publications intensifies competition between researchers. This competition was traditionally considered an incentive to produce high-quality work, but there are unwanted side-effects of this competition like publication pressure. To measure the effect of publication pressure on researchers, the Publication Pressure Questionnaire (PPQ) was developed. Upon using the PPQ, some issues came to light that motivated a revision. METHOD: We constructed two new subscales based on work stress models using the facet method. We administered the revised PPQ (PPQr) to a convenience sample together with the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ). To assess which items best measured publication pressure, we carried out a principal component analysis (PCA). Reliability was sufficient when Cronbach's alpha > 0.7. Finally, we administered the PPQr in a larger, independent sample of researchers to check the reliability of the revised version. RESULTS: Three components were identified as 'stress', 'attitude', and 'resources'. We selected 3 × 6 = 18 items with high loadings in the three-component solution. Based on the convenience sample, Cronbach's alphas were 0.83 for stress, 0.80 for attitude, and 0.76 for resources. We checked the validity of the PPQr by inspecting the correlations with the MBI and the WDQ. Stress correlated 0.62 with MBI's emotional exhaustion. Resources correlated 0.50 with relevant WDQ subscales. To assess the internal structure of the PPQr in the independent reliability sample, we conducted the principal component analysis. The three-component solution explains 50% of the variance. Cronbach's alphas were 0.80, 0.78, and 0.75 for stress, attitude, and resources, respectively. CONCLUSION: We conclude that the PPQr is a valid and reliable instrument to measure publication pressure in academic researchers from all disciplinary fields. The PPQr strongly relates to burnout and could also be beneficial for policy makers and research institutions to assess the degree of publication pressure in their institute.

Preregistering qualitative research.

The threat to reproducibility and awareness of current rates of research misbehavior sparked initiatives to better academic science. One initiative is preregistration of quantitative research. We investigate whether the preregistration format could also be used to boost the credibility of qualitative research. A crucial distinction underlying preregistration is that between prediction and postdiction. In qualitative research, data are used to decide which way interpretation should move forward, using data to generate hypotheses and new research questions. Qualitative research is thus a real-life example of postdiction research. Some may object to the idea of preregistering qualitative studies because qualitative research generally does not test hypotheses, and because qualitative research design is typically flexible and subjective. We rebut these objections, arguing that making hypotheses explicit is just one feature of preregistration, that flexibility can be tracked using preregistration, and that preregistration would provide a check on subjectivity. We then contextualize preregistrations alongside another initiative to enhance credibility in qualitative research: the confirmability audit. Besides, preregistering qualitative studies is practically useful to combating dissemination bias and could incentivize qualitative researchers to report constantly on their study's development. We conclude with suggested modifications to the Open Science Framework preregistration form to tailor it for qualitative studies.

Perceptions of research integrity climate differ between academic ranks and disciplinary fields: Results from a survey among academic researchers in Amsterdam.

Breaches of research integrity have shocked the academic community. Initially explanations were sought at the level of individual researchers but over time increased recognition emerged of the important role that the research integrity climate may play in influencing researchers' (mis)behavior. In this study we aim to assess whether researchers from different academic ranks and disciplinary fields experience the research integrity climate differently. We sent an online questionnaire to academic researchers in Amsterdam using the Survey of Organizational Research Climate. Bonferroni corrected mean differences showed that junior researchers (PhD students, postdocs and assistant professors) perceive the research integrity climate more negatively than senior researchers (associate and full professors). Junior researchers note that their supervisors are less committed to talk about key research integrity principles compared to senior researchers (MD = -.39, CI = -.55, -.24). PhD students perceive more competition and suspicion among colleagues (MD = -.19, CI = -.35, -.05) than associate and full professors. We found that researchers from the natural sciences overall express a more positive perception of the research integrity climate. Researchers from social sciences as well as from the humanities perceive less fairness of their departments' expectations in terms of publishing and acquiring funding compared to natural sciences and biomedical sciences (MD = -.44, CI = -.74, -.15; MD = -.36, CI = -.61, -.11). Results suggest that department leaders in the humanities and social sciences should do more to set fairer expectations for their researchers and that senior scientists should ensure junior researchers are socialized into research integrity practices and foster a climate in their group where suspicion among colleagues has no place.