Retractions of scientific publications: responsibility and accountability

Systematic review and meta-analyses of studies analysing instructions to authors from 1987 to 2017

To gain insight into changes of scholarly journals' recommendations, we conducted a systematic review of studies that analysed journals' Instructions to Authors (ItAs). We summarised results of 153 studies, and meta-analysed how often ItAs addressed: 1) authorship, 2) conflicts of interest, 3) data sharing, 4) ethics approval, 5) funding disclosure, and 6) International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts. For each topic we found large between-study heterogeneity. Here, we show six factors that explained most of that heterogeneity: 1) time (addressing of topics generally increased over time), 2) country (large differences found between countries), 3) database indexation (large differences found between databases), 4) impact factor (topics were more often addressed in highest than in lowest impact factor journals), 5) discipline (topics were more often addressed in Health Sciences than in other disciplines), and 6) sub-discipline (topics were more often addressed in general than in sub-disciplinary journals).

Models, Processes, and Roles of Universities in Technology Transfer Management: A Systematic Review

Universities play pivotal roles when research findings are to be adopted commercially. Although these roles vary from one country to another, effective patenting and licensing procedures, as well as eventual commercialisation of scholarly inventions, reflect hard work on the part of the University mediating between the researcher and the industry through technology transfer offices (TTOs) in order to ensure that knowledge-developers take motivational and monetary credit for their findings. This paper details some existing models, processes, and roles taken up in some countries where sharing of intellectual property exists, and links it up with aspects of university–industry technology transfer, such as policies surrounding patenting, government investment and marketing, and the process of academic entrepreneurship, among others. 22 articles were found via a systematic review of literature and analysed with respect to four identified areas of focus: internal strategy, investment and market, academic entrepreneurship and policy. Based on models, processes, and roles in reviewed studies, our results indicate that new models for technology transfer mainly stem from the fact that there is no universally accepted model in the literature. Furthermore, management of technology transfer is mostly the responsibility of TTOs in most countries. While university TTOs act as intermediaries to protect the interest of the author/inventor, issues such as poor relationships between universities and industry, as well as funding, remain major challenges in many emerging economies. In contrast, researchers in western economies are mainly challenged by financial motivation and recognition within the academic domains.

Perceptions of Ethical Climate and Research Pressures in Different Faculties of a University: Cross-Sectional Study at the University of Split, Croatia

We determined the prevailing ethical climate at three different schools of a single university, in order to explore possible differences in the ethical climate related to different research fields: the School of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Naval Architecture; the School of Humanities and Social Sciences; and the School of Medicine. We used the Ethical Climate Questionnaire to survey the staff (teachers and administration) at the three schools, and used the research integrity and organizational climate (RIOC) survey for early-stage researchers at the three schools. The dominant ethical climate type perceived collectively at the three university schools (response rate 49%, n = 294) was Laws and professional codes, which is associated with the cosmopolitan level of analysis and the ethical construct of principle. Individually, the same climate predominated at the schools for engineering and humanities, but the School of Medicine had the Self-interest ethical climate, which is associated with the individual level of analysis and the egoism ethical construct. In the RIOC survey (response rate 85%; n = 70), early-stage researchers from the three university schools did not differ in their perceptions of the organizational research integrity climate, or in their perceived individual, group or organizational pressures. Our study is the first, to the best of our knowledge, to show differences in perceived ethical climate at a medical school compared to other schools at a university. Further studies are needed to explore the reasons for these differences and how they translate to organizational outcomes, such as job satisfaction, commitment to the institution and dysfunctional behaviour, including research misconduct.

Do Croatian open access journals support ethical research? Content analysis of instructions to authors

INTRODUCTION

The aim of our study was to investigate the extent to which Instructions to authors of the Croatian open access (OA) journals are addressing ethical issues. Do biomedical journals differ from the journals from other disciplines in that respect? Our hypothesis was that biomedical journals maintain much higher publication ethics standards.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This study looked at 197 Croatian OA journals Instructions to authors to address the following groups of ethical issues: general terms; guidelines and recommendations; research approval and registration; funding and conflict of interest; peer review; redundant publications, misconduct and retraction; copyright; timeliness; authorship; and data accessibility. We further compared a subset of 159 non-biomedical journals with a subset of 38 biomedical journals. Content analysis was used to discern the ethical issues representation in the instructions to authors.

RESULTS

The groups of biomedical and non-biomedical journals were similar in terms of originality (χ2=2.183, P=0.140), peer review process (χ2=0.296, P=0.586), patent/grant statement (χ2=2.184, P=0.141), and timeliness of publication (χ2=0.369, P=0.544). We identified significant differences among categories including ethical issues typical for the field of biomedicine, like patients (χ2=47.111, P<0.001), and use of experimental animals (χ2=42.543, P<0.001). Biomedical journals also rely on international editorial guidelines formulated by relevant professional organizations heavily, compared with non-biomedical journals (χ2=42.666, P<0.001).

CONCLUSION

Low representation or absence of some key ethical issues in author guidelines calls for more attention to the structure and the content of Instructions to authors in Croatian OA journals.