Misconduct Policies, Academic Culture and Career Stage, Not Gender or Pressures to Publish, Affect Scientific Integrity

Abstract

The honesty and integrity of scientists is widely believed to be threatened by pressures to publish, unsupportive research environments, and other structural, sociological and psychological factors. Belief in the importance of these factors has inspired major policy initiatives, but evidence to support them is either non-existent or derived from self-reports and other sources that have known limitations. We used a retrospective study design to verify whether risk factors for scientific misconduct could predict the occurrence of retractions, which are usually the consequence of research misconduct, or corrections, which are honest rectifications of minor mistakes. Bibliographic and personal information were collected on all co-authors of papers that have been retracted or corrected in 2010-2011 (N=611 and N=2226 papers, respectively) and authors of control papers matched by journal and issue (N=1181 and N=4285 papers, respectively), and were analysed with conditional logistic regression. Results, which avoided several limitations of past studies and are robust to different sampling strategies, support the notion that scientific misconduct is more likely in countries that lack research integrity policies, in countries where individual publication performance is rewarded with cash, in cultures and situations were mutual criticism is hampered, and in the earliest phases of a researcher’s career. The hypothesis that males might be prone to scientific misconduct was not supported, and the widespread belief that pressures to publish are a major driver of misconduct was largely contradicted: high-impact and productive researchers, and those working in countries in which pressures to publish are believed to be higher, are less-likely to produce retracted papers, and more likely to correct them. Efforts to reduce and prevent misconduct, therefore, might be most effective if focused on promoting research integrity policies, improving mentoring and training, and encouraging transparent communication amongst researchers.

Meta-assessment of bias in science

“…Our results supported the hypothesis that early-career researchers might be at higher risk from bias, largely in line with previous results on retractions and corrections (16) and with predictions of mathematical models (26). The reasons why early-career researchers are at greater risk of bias remain to be understood.…”

“…The team characteristics that we measured are very indirect proxies of mutual control. However, in a previous study these proxies yielded similar results on retractions and corrections (16), which were also significantly predicted by sociological hypotheses about the academic culture of different countries (a hypothesis that this study was not designed to test). Therefore, our findings support the view that a culture of openness and communication, whether fostered at the institutional or the team level, might represent a beneficial influence.…”

“…In particular, the notion that pressures to publish have a direct effect on bias was not supported and even contrarian evidence was seen: The most prolific researchers and those working in countries where pressures are supposedly higher were significantly less likely to publish overestimated results, suggesting that researchers who publish more may indeed be better scientists and thus report their results more completely and accurately. A previous study testing the risk of producing retracted and corrected articles, with the latter assumed to represent a proxy of integrity, had similarly falsified the pressures to publish hypothesis as conceptualized here (16), and so did historical trends of individual publication rates (39). Therefore, cumulating evidence offers little support for the dominant speculation that pressures to publish force scientists to publish excessive numbers of articles and seek high impact at all costs (40)(41)(42).…”

“…Nonetheless, concerns that papers reporting false or exaggerated findings might be widespread and growing have inspired an expanding literature of research on research (aka meta-research), which points to a postulated core set of bias patterns and factors that might increase the risk for researchers to engage in biasgenerating practices (15,16).…”

The Prevalence of Inappropriate Image Duplication in Biomedical Research Publications

“…This coincides with the observed increase in retracted publications (8) and provides empirical evidence that the increased prevalence of problematic data is not simply a result of increased detection, as has been suggested (19). software in recent years may have provided greater opportunity for both error and intentional manipulation.…”