The State of Trust & Integrity in Research: New Report

Information Industry News

From the Executive Summary

This inaugural report, The State of Trust & Integrity in Research, discusses key issues of research integrity that relate to funding agencies and their role in fostering an ecosystem of trust in research. Specifically, the report delves into funding agency policies and how they translate into practice through publications.

Produced by Ripeta, a Digital Science company dedicated to supporting and building trust in science, The State of Trust & Integrity in Research comprises contributions from a range of experienced authors, including from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), other external commentators, and Ripeta itself.

The report addresses :

  • fostering public trust in science,
  • improving integrity in research,
  • policies, data sharing, and open access practices,
  • the roles of key stakeholders in fostering research integrity

Recommendations

While policies can be critical for advancing trust and integrity in research, it is not enough to simply have policies in place.

Together, these articles not only accentuate the critical role funding agencies and other research stakeholders have in improving research integrity, they also highlight discrepancies between the various funding bodies’ policies and practices. Examples include: different approaches to use of data management plans, data repositories, data retention, and different levels of research papers published in open access (OA) journals.

Ultimately, the report recommends the need for more standardized, coordinated policies among funding agencies – at least at the national level – to comprehensively address research integrity. Central to these efforts should be a focus on incentives for researchers and institutions for compliance and for training and education. Fine-tuning existing policies may improve both researcher compliance and science.

The full text of this report, hosted on the Figshare platform, may be downloaded here.