The Hong Kong Principles for assessing researchers: Fostering research integrity

Abstract

For knowledge to benefit research and society, it must be trustworthy. Trustworthy research is robust, rigorous, and transparent at all stages of design, execution, and reporting. Assessment of researchers still rarely includes considerations related to trustworthiness, rigor, and transparency. We have developed the Hong Kong Principles (HKPs) as part of the 6th World Conference on Research Integrity with a specific focus on the need to drive research improvement through ensuring that researchers are explicitly recognized and rewarded for behaviors that strengthen research integrity. We present five principles: responsible research practices; transparent reporting; open science (open research); valuing a diversity of types of research; and recognizing all contributions to research and scholarly activity. For each principle, we provide a rationale for its inclusion and provide examples where these principles are already being adopted.

What Research Institutions Can Do to Foster Research Integrity

“…This led to initiatives like the Leiden Manifesto (Hicks et al 2015) and the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA 2020). In line with this the Hong Kong Principles for assessing researchers (Moher et al 2019) were formulated and endorsed at the 6th World Conference on Research Integrity (WCRIF 2020). These principles will help research institutions that adopt them to minimise perverse incentives that invite to engage in questionable research practices or worse.…”

“…But let me be clear: surveys, focus group interviews and Delphi studies can only guide us towards potentially effective measures research institutions can take to improve responsible research practices. How good for instance SOPs and guidelines (SOPs4RI 2020) or the Hong Kong Principles (Moher et al 2019) really are in comparison to alternative approaches needs to be sorted out in future studies designed to demonstrate effectiveness in terms of outcomes that matter.…”

Nanocharacterization, Materials Modeling, and Research Integrity as Enablers of Sound Risk Assessment: Designing Responsible Nanotechnology

“…Additionally, on a global scale, high‐level declarations have been formulated in the context of the World Conferences on Research Integrity. [ 51–53 ]…”

Publishing in 2020: A checklist to support a shift in behaviour to achieve best practice

“…What is the reason for this normative dissonance? One explanation for why researchers fall short of meeting these and other publication best practice norms is that the current perverse system of incentives and rewards in academia places value on quantity rather than quality, and on innovation rather than reproducibility and societal benefit . This is a serious concern and it will be important to address by multiple players in order to remedy the gap between agreed best practices and observed behaviours.…”