Scientists Still Behaving Badly? A Survey Within Industry and Universities

Abstract

Little is known about research misconduct within industry and how it compares to universities, even though a lot of biomedical research is performed by-or in collaboration with-commercial entities. Therefore, we sent an e-mail invitation to participate in an anonymous computer-based survey to all university researchers having received a biomedical research grant or scholarship from one of the two national academic research funders of Belgium between 2010 and 2014, and to researchers working in large biomedical companies or spin-offs in Belgium. The validated survey included questions about various types of research misconduct committed by respondents themselves and observed among their colleagues in the last three years. Prevalences of misconduct were compared between university and industry respondents using binary logistic regression models, with adjustments for relevant personal characteristics, and with significance being accepted for p < 0.01. The survey was sent to 1766 people within universities and an estimated 255 people from industry. Response rates were 43 (767/1766) and 48% (123/255), and usable information was available for 617 and 100 respondents, respectively. In general, research misconduct was less likely to be reported by industry respondents compared to university respondents. Significant differences were apparent for one admitted action (gift authorship) and three observed actions (plagiarism, gift authorship, and circumventing animal-subjects research requirements), always with lower prevalences for industry compared to universities, except for plagiarism. This survey, based on anonymous self-report, shows that research misconduct occurs to a substantial degree among biomedical researchers from both industry and universities.

Perceptions of plagiarism by biomedical researchers: an online survey in Europe and China

“…Compared to some other online surveys that also investigated plagiarism or other aspects of research integrity [61,[72][73][74], we had a low response rate (4.2%). Despite the low numbers of respondents, we did observe a number of significant differences for some questions.…”

Assessing the Efficacy of a Training Intervention to Reduce Acceptance of Questionable Research Practices in Psychology Graduate Students

“…Given the immense societal value of scientific research, scientists and policy makers have increasingly expressed interest in strategies to improve the ethical conduct of science. Attempts are mirrored by expanding awareness of the frequency of ethically questionable behavior that permeates research and the related concerns with reproducibility and nonvalidity of scientific research, particularly in psychology, with scientists becoming especially cognizant of these behaviors' detrimental effects (Bouter, Tijdink, Axelsen, Martinson, & ter Riet, 2016;Godecharle, Fieuws, Nemery, & Dierickx, 2018;Open Science Collaboration, 2015;Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn, 2011). Traditional attempts to facilitate ethical research conduct have demonstrated efficacy in fostering an understanding of ethical research, such as mandatory Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training for researchers at universities who receive federal funding (e.g., Schmaling & Blume, 2009; for a meta-analysis, see Watts et al, 2017).…”

Academic Whistle‐Blowing

“…Other forms of minor research misconduct include software piracy and failure to acknowledge substantial help from colleagues. Surveys based on anonymous self‐reporting from biomedical researchers indicate that misdemeanours such as plagiarism, gift authorship and circumvention of animal research requirements are quite common (Martinson et al, ; Godecharle et al, ). For some forms of misconduct, the strict measures taken for instance in cases of data fabrication or massive plagiarism may be overly harsh.…”