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Focus should be on transparency, ethicists say
Universities and other research organisations have been advised to “shift their focus from ‘reputation damage control’ to transparency and sharing of best practices” to ensure that research is carried out with integrity.
An independent panel of research ethicists convened by the European Commission for a national ‘learning exercise’ said that a focus on preventing reputational harm results in “secrecy and cover-up”, and that efforts should instead be geared towards transparency, honesty, inclusiveness and fairness.
The panel’s final report, published on 23 October, says that institutions “need to invest in and care for their research culture”, and that research integrity “needs a local voice and a face to become less abstract and more supportive”.
The panel was chaired by Göran Hermerén, a medical ethicist at Lund University in Sweden. He was assisted by Hub Zwart, Ana Marušić and Daniele Fanelli. They agreed that researchers were more likely to be motivated by an “inspirational” rather than competitive approach to research integrity.
Hermerén and the other panellists said that institutions should “define what [research integrity] means to them”, and suggested that academics should cite their integrity skills on their CV. Other ideas included setting up forums to reflect on emerging challenges in this area and introducing an integrity oath for researchers.