Misconduct in research

The term research misconduct usually refers to fabricating, falsifying, plagiarizing or stealing scientific data and results, that is, cheating in various ways. During recent years, many cases exemplifying such behavior have undergone review in the media.

As the state and its citizens, as well as commercial interests, require dependable scientific results, while it is also important that the public retain its trust in research, it is a self-evident fact that every researcher should strive after honest conduct. The Higher Education Act states that the trust in science and good research practice shall be upheld by the work of universities. Universities informed about possible research misconduct or other unaccaptable deviations from good research practice are obliged to investigate (The Higher Education Ordinance).

Definitions

The research ethics investigation "Good Conduct in Research" defined fraud broadly as follows: a researcher "intentionally and in a deceptive way departs from scientific requirements or consciously violates generally accepted norms" (SOU 1999:4). In the new Act on responsibility for good research practice and the examination of research misconduct the following definition is employed:

a serious deviation from good research practice in the form of fabrication, falsification or plagiarism that is committed intentionally or through gross negligence when planning, conducting or reporting research.

The European Code of Conduct for Research Intregrity explains the central notions in this way:

• Fabrication is making up results and recording them as if they were real.

• Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment or processes or changing, omitting or suppressing data or results without justification.

• Plagiarism is using other people’s work and ideas without giving proper credit to the original source, thus violating the rights of the original author(s) to their intellectual outputs.

How to report a researcher and what kind of investigation is required, is described on this page.

International

Internationally, the European Science Foundation has published several policy briefings on the subject. This work culminated in the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.

OECD has issued Best Practices for Ensuring Scientific Integrity and Preventing Misconduct. The World Congress on Research Integrity has formulated a Montreal Statement. The InterAcademy Council has issued a report on responsible conduct in a globalized research setting. EGE has a statement as well.

How to protect the integrity of the research record is described in the RePAIR Consensus Guidelines.

The peer-review system

To ensure quality in research, review is conducted at many levels: First by the granting authority and often also by a research ethics committee, then by editors and independent peer reviewers upon publication of the results, and finally by other researchers who read the published material. None of this, however, removes any of the researcher's primary responsibility.

Research material should be archived so that it is possible to go back later and test or replicate the research conducted. See pages on publication of research results, as well as handling data and material.

Last updated: 2020-01-16