{"id":119728,"date":"2020-11-13T11:35:59","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T10:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=119728"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:25:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:25:14","slug":"largest-research-into-scientific-integrity-ever-but-many-universities-do-not-participate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2020\/11\/13\/largest-research-into-scientific-integrity-ever-but-many-universities-do-not-participate\/","title":{"rendered":"Largest research into scientific integrity ever, but many universities do not participate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even so, the plans remain ambitious. All researchers working at Dutch universities and academic hospitals \u2013 from PhD candidates to professors \u2013 are being asked to complete a questionnaire<\/a> about the way in which they practise science.<\/p>\n

\"\"

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTessa Hofland<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

This has never been done before anywhere in the world: asking researchers from every discipline the same questions, from pharmacy to literature and from sociology to art history. What is going well within their discipline, what are the dubious practices and which factors play a role?<\/p>\n

Cutting corners<\/h2>

Everyone in the academic world sees academic integrity as important, especially after the prominent scandal involving Tilburg Professor of Social Psychology Diederik Stapel, whose years of academic misconduct came to light in 2011. And another issue that is increasingly being highlighted is the grey area in which researchers sometimes cut corners or make their results appear more meaningful than they actually are.<\/p>\n

ZonMW, an organisation that provides funding for research and is generally mainly involved in medical research, has launched a programme<\/a> to promote good research. It has earmarked \u20ac3.8 million for this. The \u2018National Survey on Research Integrity\u2019 is one of its four pillars.<\/p>\n

But after two and a half years of preparation, the survey is only being supported by five universities and three UMCs. These are the universities of Nijmegen, Tilburg, Maastricht and Amsterdam (two universities) and the academic hospitals in \u2013 yes \u2013 Nijmegen, Maastricht and Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

Lack of cooperation<\/h2>

All the other institutions have decided not support the survey: they are not providing lists of e-mail addresses, let alone encouraging their staff to participate. But the organisers of the project are still doing everything they can to get through to people, says researcher Gowri Gopalakrishna.<\/p>\n

How urgent is this study?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFocusing on ethical research seems more important than ever during the coronavirus crisis. We are seeing a flood of research, and many articles are being published as \u2018preprints\u2019. Those are articles that have not yet gone through the peer-review process as they normally would before being published in a scientific journal. So there are fewer controls on quality. That makes it even more important that the authors themselves work as carefully as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even peer review does not mean that every error is spotted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s true. Dubious research sometimes still makes it into the leading scientific journals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is there a recent example of that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis spring, there was a study in The Lancet<\/em> about a malaria drug which, unfortunately, is not an effective treatment for Covid-19. The underlying data turned out not to exist at all. Fortunately, this did not affect the treatment of patients, because other research showed that the drug was ineffective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do problems like this happen outside the field of medicine?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019d like to find out. We hear all kinds of stories, but the aim of this study is to find out exactly what is going on, and in which disciplines. It would show us where we need to focus. The results of this study wouldn\u2019t be the end of a process, but the beginning: the survey would give us the hard data we need to start a dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can you cover all disciplines with one questionnaire?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWell you can\u2019t capture everything in one questionnaire, of course, and some terms may lead to questions. But this is the first step. It won\u2019t take researchers any more than 15 to 25 minutes to complete the questionnaire. We had a shorter questionnaire to start with, but it turned out that it was not nuanced enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most universities and UMCs are not actively taking part in the survey. What effect will that have?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cResearchers can still take part, but there is nobody to point out how important the survey is. We\u2019ve noticed that often our emails are not even opened. The researchers might think it\u2019s spam, or not recognise the name of the research agency, Kantar. Or they might lose interest when they see the ZonMW logo, because they don\u2019t usually have anything to do with us. So none of that helps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Are the institutions being deliberately obstructive?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe so, but this is a problem that affects all of us and so I\u2019m disappointed that the institutions aren\u2019t more willing to tackle it together. Apparently there is no collective will to work on this problem together. But we\u2019ll need to work together if we want to understand the issue of scientific integrity in all its complexity. We hope that researchers will still take part, even if their own institution is not actively supporting the survey.\u201d<\/p>\n

A broader palette<\/h2>

The HOP approached one general university and one technical university to ask why they are not supporting the study. Both referred to the forthcoming evaluation of the Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, which was introduced in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat evaluation will highlight a broader range of issues and is expected to provide better information on how to improve policy,\u201d replied Utrecht University. \u201cBecause our researchers will need to take part in that evaluation, after careful consideration we have decided not to participate actively in the NSRI. We regularly need to decide whether or not to send surveys to our researchers.\u201d<\/p>\n

TU Eindhoven also referred to the evaluation of the new code of conduct: \u201cWe expect that evaluation to provide more information on possible action in a wider range of areas. But of course, individual researchers are still free to take part in the NSRI survey. We look forward to the results with interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erasmus University<\/h2>

Erasmus University had other reasons for not cooperating, the spokesperson of the Executive Board says. That decision was taken at the time because a survey had already been conducted among all EUR staff following the new national Code of Conduct for Research Integrity from 2018. In addition, the National Survey on Research Integrity provides \u2018general answers and answers per scientific discipline\u2019, but \u2018no data per university\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Executive Board did not want to put an extra burden on staff by carrying out another survey, but instead wanted to take action on the results of its own research.\u201d These results were used, for example, to revise the general integrity code<\/a> of the university, to develop a dilemma game on scientific integrity<\/a> and to professionalise the ethical review committees and data management<\/a> at the EUR.<\/p>\n\n\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t

De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t