Toward global standardization of conducting fair investigations of allegations of research misconduct

Nouchi, Rei; Aihara, H.; Arie, Fumie; Asashima, Makoto; Daida, Hiroyuki; Fudano, Jun; Fujiwara, Yasuhiro; Fushiki, Shinji; Geller, Robert J.; Hatano, Kazuo; Homma, Teiichi; Kimura, Minoru; Kuroki, Toshio; Miki, Koichi; Morita, Ikuo; Nitta, Kosaku; Shinohara, Atsushi; Siomi, Mikiko C.; Yoshida, Masayuki; Ichikawa, Iekuni

doi:10.1080/08989621.2020.1747019

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…These special organizations or working groups, overseeing the development of the allover inquiry and investigation processes, are required to consist of a limited number of researchers by national guidance (Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, 2014). Most of our sampled universities' policies utilized a number of measures to protect against conflicts of interest including the use of outside experts, limited terms for committee membership, excluding members of the same organizational unit from inquiry or investigation committees, and/or the use of signed statements for self-disclosure of possible conflicts, and it is consistent with other study (CHPS Consulting, 2000;Nouchi et al, 2020).…”

Section: Ensuring a Fair And Appropriate Investigationsupporting

confidence: 70%

“…In Japan, MEXT conducted a survey on university implementation of the "Guidelines for Responding to Misconduct in Research, " organized a special survey every year, and published the results (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Japan, 2022). The survey inquired in great detail about the university's investigation procedure and committee, initiatives to raise awareness of research ethics, preservation and presentation of research data, and promotion of RI, especially novel and distinctive practices (Nouchi et al, 2020). It also requested that respondents provide evidence such as documents, protocols, names of meetings where decisions were made, and dates of resolutions.…”

Section: Inquiry and Investigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A study on the content of integrity policies and research integrity management in Chinese universities

Cao

Jiang²,

Zhao³

2023

Front. Res. Metr. Anal.

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BackgroundThis study outlines a comprehensive analysis of the primary characteristics of managing research integrity (RI) in domestic colleges and universities in China. RI education in China consists primarily of soft advocacy, with no hard requirements or continuous and systematic support. Together with other stakeholders, such as funders and publishers, higher education institutions (e.g., colleges and universities) are one of the vital actors that have a lot of influence on RI promotion and implementation among researchers. However, the literature on the regulation of RI policies in China's universities is limited.MethodsWe investigate the top 50 colleges and universities in the 2021 Best Chinese Universities Ranking. Their guidance and policy documents on RI were collected via their official websites. By integrating the use of scientometrics analysis, including descriptive statistical analysis, inductive content analysis, and quantitative analysis, we examine whether and how these higher education institutions respond to national policies in a timely manner, especially in terms of their frequency of updates, topic clustering analysis, terms clustering analysis, content aggregation. To further understand the composition mechanism and the main working systems of university RI management organizations, we conducted in-depth research on the organizational functions, meeting system, staff composition mechanism, and scientific research misconduct acceptance and investigation mechanisms.ResultsThe regulations on the treatment of RI in China's universities have, in response to the government's call to establish their own management policies and working mechanisms, maintained a zero-tolerance stance on research misconduct. The sampled universities listed the definition and principles of misconduct practices, investigation procedures, and sanctions of research misconduct in their own policy documents. Some of them listed inappropriate research practices All 50 sampled universities have formed relevant organizations responsible for RI management, they all provide the detailed regulations of the committees. Yet, there is still a need to further define Questionable Research Practice, foster higher standards for integrity in research and, establish and improve an efficient, authoritative, well-restrained and supervision working mechanism for organizations responsible for RI treatment.

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Section: Ensuring a Fair And Appropriate Investigationsupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: Inquiry and Investigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A study on the content of integrity policies and research integrity management in Chinese universities

Cao

Jiang²,

Zhao³

2023

Front. Res. Metr. Anal.

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“…However, research performing organizations may have been unable to investigate allegations against their employees effectively due to a lack of guidelines (National Academies of Sciences, 2017 ; National Academies of Sciences et al, 2016 ), or disinclined to do so to prevent negative consequences of eventual retractions, such as reputational damage and financial loss (Institute of Medicine, 2012 ), leaving their obligation to investigate allegations to be fulfilled by journal authorities. Research performing organizations may have conducted investigations into allegations against their misbehaving employees but subsequently have decided to cover them up (Nouchi et al, 2020 ) by soft-pedalling the severity of confirmed allegations (e.g., Tsukumo et al, 2016 ), producing research misconduct reports with inadequate credibility (Gunsalus et al, 2018 ), or refusing to reveal their investigations (Abdi et al, 2023 ). As a result, journal authorities may have ended up making retraction decisions based on their own investigations (e.g., The Journal of Rheumatology, 2018 ) to ward off litigations, which can be a plausible explanation for the observed increase in disclosing their investigations into allegations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What do Retraction Notices Reveal About Institutional Investigations into Allegations Underlying Retractions?

Evans

et al. 2023

Sci Eng Ethics

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Academic journal publications may be retracted following institutional investigations that confirm allegations of research misconduct. Retraction notices can provide insight into the role institutional investigations play in the decision to retract a publication. Through a content analysis of 7,318 retraction notices published between 1927 and 2019 and indexed by the Web of Science, we found that most retraction notices (73.7%) provided no information about institutional investigations that may have led to retractions. A minority of the retraction notices (26.3%) mentioned an institutional investigation either by journal authorities (12.1%), research performing organizations (10.3%), joint institutions (1.9%), research integrity and ethics governing bodies (1.0%), third-party institutions (0.5%), unspecified institutions (0.4%), or research funding organizations (0.1%). Comparing retraction notices issued before and after the introduction of retraction guidelines by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in 2009 revealed that those published after the guidelines’ publication were more likely to report investigations by journal authorities. Comparing retraction notices from different disciplines revealed that those from social sciences and the humanities were more likely to disclose investigations by research performing organizations than those from biomedical and natural sciences. Based on these findings, we suggest that the COPE retraction guidelines in the future make it mandatory to disclose in retraction notices institutional investigations leading to retractions.

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“…The US has set up government agencies to observe institutional investigations. These agencies also have the authority to pass final decisions on cases of misconduct, whereas other countries do not utilize such systems (Matsuzawa, 2014a(Matsuzawa, , 2014b(Matsuzawa, , 2014cNouchi et al, 2020). Scientific misconduct in Japan is handled completely differently from such cases in the US.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Procedures and Principles of Disposal of Research Misconduct in Japan From the Perspective of Case Analysis

Yuan

Zhao

2021

Sage Open

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Increased focus on scientific developments and technological innovations and continuously rising research funding have led to numerous cases of research misconduct that blurs the boundaries between ethics, science, and culture. In our paper, we aim to develop a framework for understanding management and governance in the self-discipline stance, based on case studies from Japan. We adopted a quantity approach by examining cases from 2015 to 2019 provided by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan (MEXT), seeking to analyze the relationship between the handling of research misconduct in Japan and the relevant national regulations from the perspective of behavior definition, investigation process, responsibility, the process of the investigator, and handling measures. The results of this analysis will help to determine improved methods for processing and making decisions, and conducting assessments while examining cases of research misconduct.

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Toward global standardization of conducting fair investigations of allegations of research misconduct

Cited by 7 publications

References 12 publications

A study on the content of integrity policies and research integrity management in Chinese universities

A study on the content of integrity policies and research integrity management in Chinese universities

What do Retraction Notices Reveal About Institutional Investigations into Allegations Underlying Retractions?

Procedures and Principles of Disposal of Research Misconduct in Japan From the Perspective of Case Analysis

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