Rethinking the Meaning of Ethics in RCR Education

Student views on the culture of STEM research laboratories: Results from an interview study

In this article, we present the results of 30 ethnographic interviews in which we asked STEM graduate and undergraduate students at a Midwest university in the United States about topics related to the culture of their research group, how group members communicate and interact, and their experience with ethical issues that arise within the laboratory. Here we focus on the culture of research laboratories and describe the key categories that emerged through analysis, including communication, community structure, governance, and collaboration that influence and shape lab culture. We also consider the critical role of the principal investigator (PI) to influence conditions in the lab that facilitate or inhibit lab culture and the subsequent effects on student feelings and behaviors, interpersonal communication, collaboration, work output, and ethics. Our findings suggest that the quality of research and the wellbeing of the lab members depend not only on purely scientific factors and routine research practices but are also dependent on the culture of the lab as it manifests in interpersonal relationships. The interviews reveal the critical role students ascribe to the PI in shaping the lab culture. Based on this study, we suggest how ethical lab cultures might be encouraged.

What's Right and Wrong in Preclinical Science: A Matter of Principled Investigation

The discovery of efficacious treatment options for neuropsychiatric conditions is a process that remains in jeopardy. Contributing to the failure of clinical trials, a strong positive bias exists in the reported results of preclinical studies, including in the field of neuroscience. However, despite clear recognition of major factors that lead to bias, efforts to address them have not made much meaningful change, receiving inadequate attention from the scientific community. In truth, little real-world value is currently attached to efforts made to oppose positive bias, and instead-partially driven by competitive conditions-the opposite has become true. Since pressures throughout our system of scientific discovery, particularly those tied to definitions of individual success, hold these damaging practices firmly in place, we urgently need to make changes to the system itself. Such a transformation should include a pivot away from explicit or tacit requirements for statistical significance and clean narratives, particularly in publishing, and should promote a priori power calculations as the determinant of final sample size. These systemic changes must be reinforced and upheld in responsible decisions made by individual scientists concerning the planning, analysis, and presentation of their own research.

A randomized trial of a lab-embedded discourse intervention to improve research ethics

The ethical practice of research requires researchers to give reasons and justifications for their actions, both to the other members of their research team as well as to external audiences. We developed a project-based training curriculum intended to make ethics discourse a routine practice in university science and engineering laboratories. Here, we report the results of a randomized control trial implemented among science and engineering laboratories in two research-intensive institutions. We demonstrate that, compared with the control laboratories, treatment laboratory members perceived improvements in the quality of discourse on research ethics within their laboratories as well as enhanced awareness of the relevance and reasons for that discourse for their work as measured in surveys administered 4 mo after the intervention.

We report a randomized trial of a research ethics training intervention designed to enhance ethics communication in university science and engineering laboratories, focusing specifically on authorship and data management. The intervention is a project-based research ethics curriculum that was designed to enhance the ability of science and engineering research laboratory members to engage in reason giving and interpersonal communication necessary for ethical practice. The randomized trial was fielded in active faculty-led laboratories at two US research-intensive institutions. Here, we show that laboratory members perceived improvements in the quality of discourse on research ethics within their laboratories and enhanced awareness of the relevance and reasons for that discourse for their work as measured by a survey administered over 4 mo after the intervention. This training represents a paradigm shift compared with more typical module-based or classroom ethics instruction that is divorced from the everyday workflow and practices within laboratories and is designed to cultivate a campus culture of ethical science and engineering research in the very work settings where laboratory members interact.

Scientific Integrity Principles and Best Practices: Recommendations from a Scientific Integrity Consortium

A Scientific Integrity Consortium developed a set of recommended principles and best practices that can be used broadly across scientific disciplines as a mechanism for consensus on scientific integrity standards and to better equip scientists to operate in a rapidly changing research environment. The two principles that represent the umbrella under which scientific processes should operate are as follows: (1) Foster a culture of integrity in the scientific process. (2) Evidence-based policy interests may have legitimate roles to play in influencing aspects of the research process, but those roles should not interfere with scientific integrity. The nine best practices for instilling scientific integrity in the implementation of these two overarching principles are (1) Require universal training in robust scientific methods, in the use of appropriate experimental design and statistics, and in responsible research practices for scientists at all levels, with the training content regularly updated and presented by qualified scientists. (2) Strengthen scientific integrity oversight and processes throughout the research continuum with a focus on training in ethics and conduct. (3) Encourage reproducibility of research through transparency. (4) Strive to establish open science as the standard operating procedure throughout the scientific enterprise. (5) Develop and implement educational tools to teach communication skills that uphold scientific integrity. (6) Strive to identify ways to further strengthen the peer review process. (7) Encourage scientific journals to publish unanticipated findings that meet standards of quality and scientific integrity. (8) Seek harmonization and implementation among journals of rapid, consistent, and transparent processes for correction and/or retraction of published papers. (9) Design rigorous and comprehensive evaluation criteria that recognize and reward the highest standards of integrity in scientific research.

Responsible Epidemiologic Research Practice: a guideline developed by a working group of the Netherlands Epidemiological Society

OBJECTIVES

To develop a guideline on Responsible Epidemiologic Research Practice that will increase value and transparency, increase the accountability of the epidemiologists, and reduce research waste.

SETTING

A working group of the Netherland Epidemiological Society was given the task of developing a guideline that would meet these objectives. Several publications about the need to prevent Detrimental Research Practices triggered this work. Among these were a series in the Lancet on research waste and a subsequent series on transparency in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. The reputation and trust in epidemiologic research is still high, and the Netherlands Epidemiological Society wishes to keep it that way. The guideline deals with how epidemiologic research should be conducted, archived, and disclosed. It does not deal with the more technical aspects, such as required sample size, choice of study design, and so forth. The guideline describes each step in the process of conducting an epidemiologic study, from the first idea to the ultimate publication and beyond.

METHODS

The working group reviewed the literature on responsible research conduct, including the various existing codes of conduct. It applied the general principles from these codes to the elements of an epidemiologic study and formulated specific recommendations for each of these. Next step was to draft the guideline. Preceding the 2016 annual national epidemiology conference in Wageningen, a preconference was organized to discuss the draft guideline and to assess support. Support was clearly present, and the provided recommendations were incorporated into the draft guideline. In March 2017, a draft version of the guideline was sent to all 1,100 members of the society with the request to review and provide comments. All received responses were positive, and some minor additions were made. The Responsible Epidemiologic Research Practice guideline has now been approved by the board of the Netherlands Epidemiological Society.

CONCLUSION

With the Responsible Epidemiologic Research Practice guideline, we hope to contribute to better research practices in epidemiology but perhaps also in adjacent disciplines.

Main outcomes of an RCT to pilot test reporting and feedback to foster research integrity climates in the VA

BACKGROUND

Assessing the integrity of research climates and sharing such information with research leaders may support research best practices. We report here results of a pilot trial testing the effectiveness of a reporting and feedback intervention using the Survey of Organizational Research Climate (SOuRCe).

METHODS

We randomized 41 Veterans Health Administration (VA) facilities to a phone-based intervention designed to help research leaders understand their survey results (enhanced arm) or to an intervention in which results were simply distributed to research leaders (basic arm). Primary outcomes were (1) whether leaders took action, (2) whether actions taken were consistent with the feedback received, and (3) whether responses differed by receptivity to quality improvement input.

RESULTS

Research leaders from 25 of 42 (59%) VA facilities consented to participate in the study intervention and follow-up, of which 14 were at facilities randomized to the enhanced arm. We completed follow-up interviews with 21 of the 25 leaders (88%), 12 from enhanced arm facilities. While not statistically significant, the proportion of leaders reporting taking some action in response to the feedback was twice as high in the enhanced arm than in the basic arm (67% vs. 33%, p = .20). While also not statistically significant, a higher proportion of actions taken among facilities in the enhanced arm were responsive to the survey results than in the basic arm (42% vs. 22%, p = .64).

CONCLUSIONS

Enhanced feedback of survey results appears to be a promising intervention that may increase the likelihood of responsive action to improve organizational climates. Due to the small sample size of this pilot study, even large percentage-point differences between study arms are not statistically distinguishable. This hypothesis should be tested in a larger trial.

Making Professional Decisions in Research: Measurement and Key Predictors

The professional decision-making in research (PDR) measure was administered to 400 National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded and industry-funded investigators, along with measures of cynicism, moral disengagement, compliance disengagement, impulsivity, work stressors, knowledge of responsible conduct of research (RCR), and socially desirable response tendencies. Negative associations were found for the PDR and measures of cynicism, moral disengagement, and compliance disengagement, while positive associations were found for the PDR and RCR knowledge and positive urgency, an impulsivity subscale. PDR scores were not related to socially desirable responding, or to measures of work stressors and the remaining impulsivity subscales. In a multivariate logistic regression analysis, lower moral disengagement scores, higher RCR knowledge, and identifying the United States as one's nation of origin emerged as key predictors of stronger performance on the PDR. The implications of these findings for understanding the measurement of decision-making in research and future directions for research and RCR education are discussed.

Are Leadership and Management Essential for Good Research? An Interview Study of Genetic Researchers

Principal investigators are responsible for a myriad of leadership and management activities in their work. The practices they use to navigate these responsibilities ultimately influence the quality and integrity of research. However, leadership and management roles in research have received scant empirical examination. Semi-structured interviews with 32 National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded genetic researchers revealed that they considered leadership and management essential for effective research, but their scientific training inadequately prepared them. We also report management practices that the researchers described using in their labs, as well as their perceptions of a proposed intervention to enhance laboratory leadership. These findings suggest best practices for the research community, future directions for scientific training, and implications for research on leadership and management in science.

Conflicting messages concerning current strategies against research misconduct in Japan: a call for ethical spontaneity

The Japanese government has asserted that the purpose of scientific activities is to search for the truth about the world and contribute to public interest of the humanities and claimed that research misconduct should occur under no circumstances ever. The revealing of each new case of research misconduct leads to the establishment of investigation committees and research guidelines, as well as punishments for the transgressors. However, we wonder if Japanese researchers are receiving different messages that might undermine the purpose of the former messages. First, Japan's policies on science and technology have been created to comprise an integration of merit-based evaluations, principles of competition and a concentrated and unbalanced distribution of research funding, leading to decreases in ordinary research funding for the researchers and an increase in fierce research competition. Second, Japanese government and society as a whole continue to send the researchers messages such as 'Only results matter', 'Be No. 1 as a top priority' and 'All we need now is scientific progress'. Third, cultural peculiarities may explain some of the actions relevant to research misconducts currently noted in Japan. We argue that it is essential to re-examine and improve the governmental policies and evaluation methods for research achievements need to be more multifaceted. In order to have the researchers act according to ethics, it is essential for them to reaffirm their objectives for working in the fields of science and medicine and the importance of balancing their personal profit with the greater cause for entering into this field.