Lex M. Bouter‘s Keynote speech about research integrity.
Speech at 4th international conference Plagiarism across Europe and Beyond 2018 (9th-11th May 2018, Ephesus, Turkey).
Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XC7Wjd_6zc
Length: 54 minutes
Abstract:
Funding agencies should make sure that institutions receiving grants have adequate processes for dealing with putative breaches of research integrity, provide good training in responsible conduct of research, and have adequate quality control, including internal audits. They should also require that funded research has transparency ‘from protocol to publication’.
Furthermore, funding agencies ought to demand that grant proposals make clear
why the study question is relevant for the envisioned end‐users and show that
the research question has not already been answered, using a recent systematic
review. With a clever combination of eligibility criteria and postponing the last
payment until all conditions have been met, funding agencies can be really effective in changing the behaviour of scientists and their institutions.
Scientific journals should first and foremost prevent selective reporting by making sure that the decision to accept or reject a manuscript does not depend on the
results of the study, but solely on the relevance of the research question and the
soundness of the methods used. Registered reports is a promising way to ensure
this, because the decision is made before data collection and data analysis.
Journals also have a key role to play in enforcing more transparency by demanding registration and publication of the study protocol, data analysis plan, data
set and a full report on all results. The Transparency and Openness Promotion guidelines provide a matrix to clarify journal policy regarding the various
aspects of transparency.
Finally, journals need to move from double‐blind prepublication peer review to
an open debate on the merits of a report that continues after publication. Disrupting innovation comes from initiatives like Retraction Watch and PubPeer.
Reproduced from: Bouter LM. What funding agencies can do to prevent sloppy science. EuroScientist September 29, 2016 (https://www.euroscientist.com/
what‐funding‐agencies‐and‐journals‐can‐do‐to‐prevent‐sloppy‐science/).
