What can we learn from the Hwang and Sudbø affairs?

Scientific misconducts and authorship conflicts: Indian perspective

This article is a narrative review about how appropriate authorship can be achieved, a brief mention about various scientific misconducts, the reason and consequences of such misconducts and finally, the policies to be adopted by the aspiring authors to avert these problems. The literature search was performed in the Google and PubMed using 'scientific misconduct', 'honorary/ghost authorship', 'publish-or-perish', 'plagiarism' and other related key words and phrases. More than 300 free full-text articles published from 1990 to 2015 were retrieved and studied. Many consensus views have been presented regarding what constitutes authorship, the authorship order and different scientific misconducts. The conflicts about authorship issues related to publication of dissertation, the area of the grey zone have been discussed. Suggestions from different authorities about improving the existing inappropriate authorship issues have been included.

Research ethics in the post-genomic era

New high-throughput 'omics techniques are providing exciting opportunities in clinical medicine and toxicology, especially in the development of biomarkers. In health science research there are traditional ethical considerations that are reasonably obvious, like balancing health benefits and health risks, autonomy mainly pursued by informed consent, and protecting privacy. Epidemiological studies applying new large-scale approaches (e.g., high-throughput or high-content methods and global studies that utilize biobanking of samples and produce large-scale datasets) present new challenges that call for re-evaluation of standard ethical considerations. In this context, assessment of the ethics underlying study designs, bioinformatics, and statistics applied in the generation and clinical translation of research results should also be considered. Indeed, there are ethical considerations in the research process itself, in research objectives and how research is pursued (e.g., which methodologies are selected and how they are carried out). Maintaining research integrity is critical, as demonstrated by the relatively frequent retraction of scientific papers following violations of good scientific practice. Abiding by the laws is necessary but not sufficient for good research ethics, which is and remains in the hands of the scientific community at the level of both individual scientists and organizations. Senior scientists are responsible for the transfer of research tradition to the next generation of scientists through education, mentorship, and setting an example by their own behavior, as well as by creating systems in institutions that support good research ethics.

Scientific dishonesty--a nationwide survey of doctoral students in Norway

Background

The knowledge of scientific dishonesty is scarce and heterogeneous. Therefore this study investigates the experiences with and the attitudes towards various forms of scientific dishonesty among PhD-students at the medical faculties of all Norwegian universities.

Method

Anonymous questionnaire distributed to all post graduate students attending introductory PhD-courses at all medical faculties in Norway in 2010/2011. Descriptive statistics.

Results

189 of 262 questionnaires were returned (72.1%). 65% of the respondents had not, during the last year, heard or read about researchers who committed scientific dishonesty. One respondent had experienced pressure to fabricate and to falsify data, and one had experienced pressure to plagiarize data. On average 60% of the respondents were uncertain whether their department had a written policy concerning scientific conduct. About 11% of the respondents had experienced unethical pressure concerning the order of authors during the last 12 months. 10% did not find it inappropriate to report experimental data without having conducted the experiment and 38% did not find it inappropriate to try a variety of different methods of analysis to find a statistically significant result. 13% agreed that it is acceptable to selectively omit contradictory results to expedite publication and 10% found it acceptable to falsify or fabricate data to expedite publication, if they were confident of their findings. 79% agreed that they would be willing to report misconduct to a responsible official.

Conclusion

Although there is less scientific dishonesty reported in Norway than in other countries, dishonesty is not unknown to doctoral students. Some forms of scientific misconduct are considered to be acceptable by a significant minority. There was little awareness of relevant policies for scientific conduct, but a high level of willingness to report misconduct.

Falsified papers in high-impact journals were slow to retract and indistinguishable from nonfraudulent papers

OBJECTIVE

The aim was to evaluate papers retracted due to falsification in high-impact journals.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING

We selected articles retracted due to allegations of falsification in January 1, 1980 to March 1, 2006 from journals with impact factor >10 and >30,000 annual citations. We evaluated characteristics of these papers and misconduct-involved authors and assessed whether they correlated with time to retraction. We also compared retracted articles vs. matched nonretracted articles in the same journals.

RESULTS

Fourteen eligible journals had 63 eligible retracted articles. Median time from publication to retraction was 28 months; it was 79 months for articles where a senior researcher was implicated in the misconduct vs. 22 months when junior researchers were implicated (log-rank P<0.001). For the 25 implicated authors, the median time from the first publication of a fraudulent paper to the first retraction was 34 months, again with a clear difference according to researcher rank (log-rank P=0.001). Retracted articles didn't differ from matched nonretracted papers in citations received within 12 months, number of authors, country, funding, or field, but were twofold more likely to have multinational authorship (P=0.049).

CONCLUSIONS

Retractions due to falsification can take a long time, especially when senior researchers are implicated. Fraudulent articles are not obviously distinguishable from nonfraudulent ones.

Australia needs an office of academic integrity

Institutions investigating allegations of research misconduct are vulnerable to claims that their processes are inadequate or that they have an institutional conflict of interest. The Office of Research Integrity in the United States sets down standards for and reviews the adequacy of investigations of research misconduct by institutions; recognises that internal politics and the involvement of non-experts can lead to honest mistakes being regarded as serious misconduct; requires complainants and investigators to act "in good faith"; and reduces damaging publicity when complaints are misconceived or false. Australia needs an office of academic integrity to ensure that all complaints are thoroughly investigated; the investigative procedures meet international standards; fair processes are provided for complainants and respondents; and institutions are protected from claims of "cover-up" and institutional conflict of interest.

Implementing a research governance framework for clinical and public health research

Research conduct in Australia and worldwide is mostly unaudited. The purpose of good research governance is to ensure integrity in research through accountability, transparency and responsibility. Institutional responsibility for research governance has been adopted by Monash University's Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, providing clear lines of accountability for researchers as well as support and guidance. A research audit tool has been developed, identifying areas where practice could be improved especially among less experienced researchers; the most common adverse findings concerned research protocols and procedure manuals. The need for participant confidentiality, privacy and data security was found to be understood, and adhered to widely by all researchers. An evaluation of the effect of audit on researchers found that the process was well accepted.