Australia needs an office of academic integrity

The prevention and investigation of research misconduct, particularly in medicine, remain in the news, with reports of cases in South Korea,1,2 Norway,3 the United States,4 India5 and Canada.6 Some countries have established procedures and designated bodies for investigating allegations of research misconduct: in the US there is the Office of Research Integrity (ORI);7,8 in Germany, the Committee of Inquiry on Allegations of Scientific Misconduct; and, in Denmark, the Committees on Scientific Dishonesty.9 A national office for this purpose is under consideration in the United Kingdom.10 In Australia, we have guidelines on research practice; the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (AVCC) and the Australian Research Council are currently revising the Joint NHMRC / AVCC statement and guidelines on research practice (1997).11,12

Academic integrity requires standards of scrupulous honesty and high moral values in all academic and scientific endeavours and its maintenance is ultimately dependent on individuals. Bodies that conduct and fund research — universities, research institutes, government agencies, and private corporations (eg, the pharmaceutical industry) — all have policies and procedures to promote integrity in research. However, under current circumstances, they will never be able to ensure that every link in the chain strictly adheres to these ideals, or that any complaints related to academic research are justly and thoroughly investigated. Furthermore, institutions investigating allegations of research misconduct are vulnerable to claims they have inadequate processes or have an institutional conflict of interest. I believe that Australia needs to establish an office of academic integrity based on the ORI model in the US.

“Research misconduct means fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.”13 It may also include “other practices that seriously deviate from those that are commonly accepted within the scientific community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research”.14 The “other practices” rule is not universally accepted and is not in the ORI definition because it could lead to novel research methods being deemed misconduct.8 According to Rennie and Gunsalus,

Sabotage and interference, misrepresentation, conflicts of interest and authorship issues are also not included in the ORI definitions, but many of these issues remain in the Australian,14 UK (Medical Research Council Policy and Procedure for Inquiring into Allegations of Scientific Misconduct),15 and Danish policies.16

The true extent of research misconduct is unknown and may never be determined, as most studies published in scientific journals are not cited by other authors and no one attempts to reproduce their results.3 Within the area of health and medical research, Nordic countries receive one to two complaints of research misconduct per million population each year;9,16 the ORI received 265 allegations in 2005 but, of these, only 30 resulted in an inquiry.17 An anonymous survey of US researchers, in which about half responded, found 0.3% admitted to falsification, 12.5% overlooked the use of flawed data or questionable interpretation of data by others, and 15.5% had changed “the design, methodology or results of a study in response to pressure from a funding source”.18

Rennie and Gunsalus argue that investigations into research misconduct should use a two-step process.8 First, establish the facts. Is there a material error? Material errors alter the meaning of a body of work and require retraction. It is self-evident that mistakes that make no difference to any conclusion are not misconduct.

The second step is to assess whether a material error was made with intent, either deliberately or recklessly, rather than being a genuine mistake or human error. This step needs to consider circumstances and track record. A material error is not misconduct if it is an honest mistake, or the best interpretation that could be made at the time. Misconduct is a knowing, deliberate or reckless action to advance a false proposition.

The Baltimore case in the US, around the time of the establishment of the ORI, illustrates the role of an independent body in investigating allegations of research misconduct, particularly when the process is complicated by political interference. David Baltimore, a Nobel Laureate, defended Thereza Imanishi-Kari, his co-author on an article in the journal Cell in 1986, when allegations of scientific misconduct were made by a postdoctoral fellow in his laboratory.19 The matter went on for 10 years, kept alive by political pressure from members of the US Congress and scientific colleagues, and a persistent campaign by the whistleblower, with wide public and media debate. Baltimore later commented:

In the mid 1980s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) used ad-hoc committees of scientists to investigate such allegations, one of which investigated Imanishi-Kari in 1987 and did not find misconduct.21 The Office of Scientific Integrity, established as part of the NIH in 1989, reopened the case that year in response to new evidence from a Congressional Inquiry. An ad-hoc scientific review committee found misconduct in 1991,21 but its findings were contested by Imanishi-Kari and Baltimore.

The ORI was formed in 1992 to be independent of funding agencies and to have legally based processes. Its charter was to educate as well as develop regulations and review investigations. Box 1 lists some important ORI regulations.

The ultimate inquiry that exonerated Imanishi-Kari had rules of evidence and included cross-examination in front of two judges, with advice from an independent overseas expert. The article in question was withdrawn, but the error was not misconduct.19

ORI regulations have been debated and refined over the past 14 years. Thirty-seven per cent of complaints of misconduct handled by the ORI are substantiated.17 There is recognition that not all complainants and investigators act in “good faith”. Research practices relevant to the field of science are the benchmark.

The processes of the ORI appear to have reduced congressional and press interference in complaints about research integrity in the US.

In Box 2, I summarise the basic requirements for improving assessment of allegations of research misconduct in Australia, the first of which is the establishment of an office of academic integrity. This would give the Australian public and the international academic community confidence that all complaints related to academic standards in Australian universities, research institutions and research organisations would be thoroughly and justly investigated. Such an office would protect individual institutions from claims of “cover-up” or institutional conflict of interest by confirming that their procedures meet international standards.

With Australia’s research base being much smaller than that in the US, an office restricted to overseeing investigations of research misconduct may not be viable. Thus, I propose that this office set standards and review investigations related to other complaints about academic standards. Initially, such an office would establish procedures for investigating research misconduct — falsification, fabrication and plagiarism — in scientific and scholarly work. Over time, it could also provide guidelines for investigating other perennial complaints, including plagiarism by students, conflicts of interest, sabotage and interference, authorship, curriculum vitae inaccuracies, unfair academic promotions, and other matters that undermine academic integrity.

An office of academic integrity would have well developed processes for ensuring procedural fairness, similar to those of the ORI in the US (Box 1),13 including what to do first when confronted with research misconduct. The Director of the ORI, Chris B Pascal, stated that if “you don’t know what to do first . . . you may end up violating legal norms . . . The mistakes that often follow make it hard to reach a fair decision”.22 In the US, the ORI only covers government-funded health research, but its policies set the standards for dealing with all complaints.7

Although investigations would be supervised by the office of academic integrity, the primary responsibility for investigation would remain with institutions, unless they were unwilling or unable to do so, or the investigations they carried out were inadequate. An office of academic integrity would establish regulations and provide advice on the processes required for institutional investigations. It would then monitor all investigations and review their final reports. If it was not satisfied, it could require further investigation.

These requirements are essential, as there are major problems with hastily convened external committees, as was the practice in the US before the ORI was set up. According to Rennie: “. . . ad-hoc panels, sometimes with glaring conflicts of interest . . . were frequently slow, bungled, idiosyncratic, and unfair to almost everyone”.7 An external inquiry can make major mistakes, including making findings by omission of key evidence and data, misusing scientific facts, and rewriting sentences under investigation and in key evidence. (This happened when I was subjected to an external investigation.23 Subsequent internal investigations, taking advice from internationally recognised experts in my field, could not substantiate the findings of this external committee.24)

All countries need national bodies with statutory power to regulate investigation of complaints of scientific and scholarly misconduct. Australia and the UK are 20 years behind the US in developing national procedures. The ORI was not established without controversy and robust debate; it evolved from legislation enacted in 1985.7,8 In Denmark, there are now three committees: one for health sciences, one for non-health sciences, and one for social sciences and the humanities.15 I argue that an office of academic integrity should be established in Australia by federal government legislation and the key elements for its operation adapted from those of the ORI (Box 3). An office of academic integrity would make genuine whistleblowers confident to come forward, as their concerns would be fairly investigated. It would ensure that respondents have fair and timely investigations and that errors in published work are retracted.