Research ethics: a profile of retractions from world class universities

Lievore, Caroline; Rubbo, Priscila; Santos, Celso Biynkievycz dos; Picinin, Cláudia Tânia; Pilatti, Luiz Alberto

doi:10.1007/s11192-021-03987-y

Cited by 18 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…There are growing frustrations with the lack of institutional action, response, or even communication with the Editors of journals when concerns arise (Marcus, 2020). Institutions must be made aware of the impact of retractions on their reputation, as well as develop policies on the matter of misconduct, and strictly enforce swift punitive actions when misconduct is identified-proactive engagement with the Editors of journals and avoidance of obstructing or delaying investigations is necessary (Lievore et al, 2021;Steen et al, 2013;Stern et al, 2014;Yi et al, 2019). Fake peer review, fake authorship, and even fake editors are a clue to the lengths researchers can go to in order to publish their work.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Institutions must be made aware of the impact of retractions on their reputation, as well as develop policies on the matter of misconduct, and strictly enforce swift punitive actions when misconduct is identified-proactive engagement with the Editors of journals and avoidance of obstructing or delaying investigations is necessary (Lievore et al, 2021; Steen et al, 2013; Stern et al, 2014; Yi et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Mummers Farce - Retractions of Medical Papers conducted in Egyptian Institutions

Menshawey

Mahamud

2023

Preprint

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Rationale and Objective Egypt currently holds a record for the most retractions in the continent of Africa according to the Retraction Watch database, and the 2nd highest of countries in the Middle East. The purpose of this study was to perform a specific analysis on retracted medical publications from Egyptian affiliations to outline or delineate specific problems and solutions. Materials and Methods The Retraction Watch Database, Google Scholar, SCOPUS, PubMed, and journals sponsored by the Egyptian Knowledge Bank were searched for all Egypt affiliated retracted medical publications up to the date of August 31st 2022. We observed for the reason(s) for retraction, number of citations, the length of time between publication and retraction and more. Results 68 retractions were identified that could be linked directly to a known Egyptian institution listed in the study methodology. Most retractions originated from the speciality of Obstetrics and Gynecology (n=22), followed by Anesthesia (n=7). The top 3 reasons for retraction included unreliable results, FFP level misconduct, and duplicate publication. The number of retractions significantly increased over the years, especially in 2022. When taking into account the number of medical publications per institution, the institute with the highest rate of retractions was Mansoura University, while the lowest rate was Cairo University. Conclusion The number of retracted medical Egyptian publications continues to increase over time, as more issues are uncovered in research coming from this region. Medical papers from this area have been the focus of investigations that have suggested that many results are statistically unlikely to have occurred. Authors must employ a higher ethical standard in their work, while institutions must be openly collaborative with investigations and enact penalties where needed to deter future misconduct. Future studies on retracted articles should employ a methodology that considers the institutions where the studies were conducted in order to obtain a better understanding of specific problems in certain countries or regions. Keywords: Retracted Publication, Ethics, Misconduct, Egypt, Plagiarism, RetractionWatch

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Mummers Farce - Retractions of Medical Papers conducted in Egyptian Institutions

Menshawey

Mahamud

2023

Preprint

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“…When it comes to reasons for retractions, a considerable share is attributed to misconduct, especially to falsification, fabrication, plagiarism, in different fields, with smaller fractions for honest errors (Fang et al, 2012;Bozzo et al, 2017;Li et al, 2018;Ribeiro and Vasconcelos, 2018;Coudert, 2019;Christopher, 2022). A recent analysis of 330 retractions (2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019) in journals indexed in the Web of Science database showed that 66.4% accounted for data results, including falsification, fabrication, and unreliable results (Lievore et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are female scientists underrepresented in self-retractions for honest error?

Ribeiro

Mena‐Chalco

Rocha

et al. 2023

Front. Res. Metr. Anal.

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Retractions are among the effective measures to strengthen the self-correction of science and the quality of the literature. When it comes to self-retractions for honest errors, exposing one's own failures is not a trivial matter for researchers. However, self-correcting data, results and/or conclusions has increasingly been perceived as a good research practice, although rewarding such practice challenges traditional models of research assessment. In this context, it is timely to investigate who have self-retracted for honest error in terms of country, field, and gender. We show results on these three factors, focusing on gender, as data are scarce on the representation of female scientists in efforts to set the research record straight. We collected 3,822 retraction records, including research articles, review papers, meta-analyses, and letters under the category “error” from the Retraction Watch Database for the 2010–2021 period. We screened the dataset collected for research articles (2,906) and then excluded retractions by publishers, editors, or third parties, and those mentioning any investigation issues. We analyzed the content of each retraction manually to include only those indicating that they were requested by authors and attributed solely to unintended mistakes. We categorized the records according to country, field, and gender, after selecting research articles with a sole corresponding author. Gender was predicted using Genderize, at a 90% probability threshold for the final sample (n = 281). Our results show that female scientists account for 25% of self-retractions for honest error, with the highest share for women affiliated with US institutions.

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“…Retractions have increased in both number and prominence over the past 2 decades. 1 , 2 More recently, concerns have been raised about the number of retracted COVID-19 studies. 3 While these retractions may be due to greater external scrutiny of COVID-19 literature, little is known about the potential differences between retracted COVID-19 studies and studies on other topics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Manuscript retractions represent attempts to officially withdraw published papers or posted preprints that contain errors, fraud, or other kinds of misconduct. Retractions have increased in both number and prominence over the past 2 decades . More recently, concerns have been raised about the number of retracted COVID-19 studies .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%