What criteria are used in the investigation of alleged cases of research misconduct?

Research misconduct is a global concern. Considerable research has been devoted to guidance documents, but little attention has been paid to the empirical investigation of how (alleged) cases of research misconduct are addressed in real-life and which criteria are used to qualify a case as misconduct. Therefore, we performed a content analysis of 169 closed misconduct reports between 2007 and 2017 from Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium, representing three different types of governance of research misconduct. This study showed that when considering a case of (alleged) misconduct investigating committees assess 1) the objective evidence of research misconduct, 2) the subjective intent of the person subject to investigations, and 3) case specific circumstances. We found that research misconduct was established in 15% (9/61) of cases in Denmark; 16% (13/82) in the Netherlands and 38% (10/26) in Belgium. 57% (35/61) of cases in Denmark, 49% (40/82) in the Netherlands, and 12% (3/26) in Belgium were deemed outside of the scope of the investigating committee. Our analysis improves the understanding of how investigations of (alleged) misconduct are handled by the investigating committees in Europe.

Educating PhD Students in Research Integrity in Europe.

No university or research institution is immune to research misconduct or the more widespread problem of questionable research practices. To strengthen integrity in research, universities worldwide have developed education in research integrity. However, little is known about education in research integrity for PhD students in European research-intensive universities. We conducted a content analysis of didactic materials of 11 of the 23 members of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) to map out the content, format, frequency, duration, timing, and compulsory status of their training programmes and the characteristics of instructors of the onsite courses. Quantitative results revealed substantial variation in educational materials among the studied institutions. This variation might be because European research universities are free to design curricula without any requirements from the European, national, or institutional public funding channels. Given the challenges inherent to modern science and preventing misconduct, research institutions should empower future generations of researchers to engage in responsible research practices. To promote integrity in research among PhD students, we provide a set of recommendations for university-wide education in research integrity for doctoral trainees based on our investigation of educational resources.

Collecting and characterizing existing and freely accessible research integrity educational resources.

In addition to effective training practices, well-structured educational resources are important for developing successful research integrity training programs. A considerable amount of educational material has been developed in the last years, but there is a necessity to find better ways to assess and categorize the already existing resources. We collected 237 freely available online RI educational resources with the aim to describe them in as much detail as possible using a set of well-defined criteria. We developed a grid that gives a full description, based on our 21 criteria, for each collected resource. Mainly videos and online RI training are present in our collection. Worldwide, resources are mainly from the US, whereas in Europe mainly from the UK. In the majority of the cases, the educational resources are not customized, presenting the big three (falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism) as the most addressed topics. Making RI educational resources easily accessible might help to increase awareness about the topic. Moreover, the characterization we provide might help researchers and students to deal with daily RI-related issues, to look for the right tool at the right time, and might help institutions and trainers to develop new trainings without the need to develop new tools.Abbreviations: CITI: Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative; COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics; ENERI: European Network of Research Ethics and Research Integrity; ENRIO: the European Network of Research Integrity Offices; EU: European Union; NIH: National Institutes of Health; NSF: National Science Foundation; NRIN: the Netherlands Research Integrity Network; ORI: the Office of Research Integrity; PPT: powerpoint; QRP: questionable research practice; RI: research integrity; RCR: responsible conduct of research.