Pressures on researchers ‘leading to questionable practices’

Academic research fosters a culture that disincentivises sharing and collaboration, a survey has revealed

Barriers to open sharing of research are leading to “questionable practices”, such as data manipulation to achieve ‘interesting’ or ‘significant’ results, a survey has found.

Researchers reported this was because of the competition created by success being assessed through traditional, peer-reviewed papers, according to a report from research publishing platform Octopus.